On
Christmas Eve 1988, Heinrich Von Hagen, a 38-year old German-born
vibrational spectroscopy specialist was gunned down by a police officer
in Downtown Los Angeles.
Once the recipient of the Fritz Haber
Medal of Excellence in chemical engineering, Heinrich was called many
things in the weeks following his untimely death. Some called him a
thief. Others, a terrorist. Some even went so far as to refer to the MIT
educated chemist as a cold-blooded killer. I simply knew him as Dad.
My
father, described as "a didactic man with a kind heart," was the first
member of our family to fall victim to the trigger finger of Officer
John "The Cowboy" McClane. The Nakatomi Plaza job was to be to my
father's first and last working as an explosives expert for Hans
Gruber, or, "Uncle Groobs" as my family once knew him. With two fatal
shots fired directly into his chest, John McClane and his unregistered
Walther P5 pistol made certain that Dad would never work another day in
his life.
An off-duty New York City police officer, McClane was in
Los Angeles visiting his estranged wife, Holly Genero, an accounts
manager working for the Nakatomi Corporation at the time.
McClane and Genero attended a Christmas party in the Nakatomi Plaza
that evening, a party that my father and Uncle Groobs would eventually
crash.
While Hans Gruber was technically not our uncle--or even a
blood relative for that matter--he was still every bit a part of our
family. Forming a friendship during their youth as members of the West
German Volksfrei movement, Dad was the first to follow Hans out when he
was excommunicated from the regime for being "exceedingly violent."
As
a reward for his loyalty, Hans helped to financially supplement my
father's college tuition, which eventually led him to receive a
Fulbright Scholarship to continue his chemical engineering studies in
the United States at MIT. In other words, just about all that my father
accomplished in the world of academia, he owed to Uncle Groobs.
In
the spring of 1983, with Dad well on his way to earning his doctorate,
our family was hit by a pernicious stroke of misfortune: my sister,
Nadia, my parent's eldest, got sick. Living in Cambridge at the time,
none of us quite understood what HIV even was, me especially, as I was a
boy of only three. We moved to California that summer, as San Francisco
was said to have the finest community-based clinics in the world.
Leaving
school a mere three credits shy, Dad forfeited his chance to attach a
prestigious prefix to his name. He got a job working for the state as a
tectonic geologist, which paid him adequately, although not nearly
enough to cover Nadia's hefty medical expenses. Just as Mom had done two
months prior, Dad ended up having to take on a second job.
When
Uncle Groobs found out that my sister was sick, he was heartbroken. When
he found out that my father was driving a taxi at nights just to foot
her medical bills, he was determined to intervene.
Dad knew it
was wrong, but he was desperate. Christmas was coming up, and according
to Mom, he couldn't bare the idea of seeing Nadia, my older brother,
Vilhelm, and I wake up Christmas morning only to find pine needles under
our tree. He would do anything to avoid that outcome, even if it meant
breaking the law.
Uncle Groobs was explicit with my father's role in the heist,
he would drive the stolen Pacific Courier truck and do nothing
else—leave the gunplay to the trained professionals. Dad agreed, until
he saw how carelessly Hans' demolition "expert" was handling the highly
unstable C-4 plastic explosives. As an engineer specializing in
vibrational spectroscopy, my father was no stranger to explosives; if
this heist were to go off without a hitch, Dad knew he'd need to be the
one who planted the charges.
The night of the Nakatomi Plaza
heist came and went in a bewildering storm of fire, smoke and bullets.
Failing to identify himself as a police officer amidst the chaos, John
McClane shot my Dad twice in the chest, killing him before he hit the
ground.
My father, described as "a didactic man with a kind
heart," was the first member of our family to fall victim to the trigger
finger of Officer John "The Cowboy" McClane. He would not, however, be
the last.
Nobody took Dad's death harder than my brother,
Vilhelm, who at sixteen felt it was now his responsibility—as the man of
the house—to shoulder the brunt of the financial void left by my
father's passing. Smart and resourceful, my brother recognized he wasn't
old enough to earn the kind of money our family would need to survive,
so in early 1989, he contacted a man who he knew could help.
Unlike
the relationship I shared with Vilhelm, Simon Gruber never cared much
for his cocksure younger brother, Hans. Split apart in their native
country by the upraising of the Berlin Wall, Simon and Hans Gruber's
rivalry came about early on in their youth. Vilhelm utilized this detail
masterfully, guising his redemptive proposition to Simon in the form of
a game: "Defeat John McClane," my brother said, "And you'll accomplish
something Hans could never do." Six years later, in the Spring of 1995,
the "Simon Says" ploy was set in motion at the Federal Reserve Bank in
New York City.
I remember exactly where I was when I learned that
my big brother had been killed. A sweet rhythm oozed through our stereo
speakers, as the girls from TLC recommended that we "stick to the
rivers and lakes we're used to" in lieu of chasing waterfalls. Vilhelm,
along with his mentor, Simon, were both incinerated in a helicopter
explosion. An NYPD officer serving a substance abuse violation fired the
shot that took the chopper down. Once again, John McClane had blown a
hole right through the center of our lives, acting as judge, jury, and
executioner for a second consecutive time.
Three years later, as
our wounds were beginning to heal, my mother died from a massive heart
attack while she and Nadia were together watching a film. "There was
something about that actor in Armageddon that didn't quite rub
Mom the right way," my sister said. In her final breath, all my mother
could manage to eke out was, "McClane..."
My intention for writing this was never to shame Officer McClane.
In fact, in the years since my father, brother and mother's death, I've
learned to forgive the "cowboy cop" altogether. Dad knew the risks when
he got involved with the Nakatomi heist, just as Vilhelm did when he
dipped his hands into the Federal Reserve fortune. Yet these two men
laid down their lives in order to support something that John McClane
never quite had: a family that loved him unconditionally.
My
mother always claimed that I was more like her, affectionate and
observant, whereas Vilhelm and Dad shared that same stubborn tenacity.
There was, however, never a doubt who the toughest of us was. I still
see my big sister Nadia regularly, visiting her Brooklyn apartment a
couple times each month. Every time I'm there, she badgers me about why I
haven't got a wife, teasing that I'm still holding out for my boyhood
crush, Demi Moore. "Now there's a dame I'd kill for," I always say, and
we both laugh.
You know not all heroes wear a badge and tote a
pistol. You don't need to prevent a plane hijacking or stop a
cyber-terrorist to be idolized. Sometimes, all it takes is waking up
each morning, even when long ago a doctor said the previous day would be
your last. That's where my hero's moniker came from, a name given to
her years ago by my Dad. Now, all this time later, I must agree, "Die
Hard" is the perfect nickname for my sister.
