Katya was a female terrorist working alongside Simon Gruber and Mathias Targo in an attempt to steal $140 billion of gold bullion from the Federal Reserve Bank. In addition to being Simon's second-in-command, she was his lover and a certified mute. She is the secondary antagonist of Die Hard with a Vengeance.
Early Life[]
She was always seen with Hungarian contract-terrorist and bomb expert Mathias Targo, as explained by the FBI, who showed John McClane and Inspector Walter Cobb a photo of her and Targo. She had been working for him for a while, but it is unknown for how long. The FBI stated that they assumed that an Israeli assassination attempt meant for Targo killed her, but they never found a body.
Die Hard with a Vengeance[]
Katya was walking towards the damaged subway station and went downstairs into it. She used the bolt cutters to cut the lock from the subway access and got to it. She drilled the hole into the wall of one of the gold storage rooms to allow the drilling vehicle to drill the wall open. After the drilling was done, she got in the gold storage room. Katya entered the security room and found the security guard, firing at the terrorists. This distraction allowed her to pull a long, curved knife and slashing him across the throat before stabbing him repeatedly. She would have stabbed him more times, but Simon restrained her to a wall and said "I think he's dead, my dear.". Simon pushes Katya to Targo while he controls her for a bit.
Katya rode with Simon and Targo as they we're driving on the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive. She was present when during most calls, including when Ivan called Simon about John McClane heading for the Federal Reserve Bank and that Zeus Carver is heading for him and his two comrades and that Simon contacted the Radio DJ about the bomb in a school, which causes public panic. When they arrived New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, they reached the cofferdam and when Simon tried to call Nils and Klaus back up, only to get McClane, who taunts that he killed them and the four men in the Federal Reserve.
On the ship when Targo says Simon betrayed them, Katya kills Targo showing her allegiance to Simon. She travels to Canada with Simon. While everyone is preparing to leave, Katya and Simon prepare to engage in some violent sex, but McClane interrupts them in a helicopter when the police arrive. She gets angry and shoots at their chopper with a Beretta 92FS, and Zeus laughs, saying "I think she's pissed at you, McClane!". Katya and Simon get in a helicopter and she pilots it. After damaging the helicopter Zeus and McClane are in with an M60 machine gun, Simon tries to kill McClane, who is ducking behind parked cars. However, unbeknownst to Katya, who is agreeing to fly lower par Simon's instructions, McClane is luring them closer to power lines. McClane shoots the transformer with the last two shots in a Smith & Wesson Model 36 revolver and this causes the live wire to fall into the helicopter blades. Simon tries to tell Katya to fly away, but it is too late. The helicopter is electrified by the live wire, electrocuting Katya, and the chopper crashes onto the asphalt pavement, where it explodes, killing Simon.
Trivia[]
- She is the first female terrorist antagonist. She is not the female antagonist however. Mary was the first female antagonist but she wasn't a terrorist, nor did she pose as a direct threat to McClane.
- Her name "Katya" is a very popular name in slavic nations such as Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia. However, her nationality is never mentioned in the entire film.
- She is the first female character killed by John.
- She has her name spoken only once, approximately thirty minutes before the end.
- She was based upon a photo from one of Sam Phillips' CD covers.
- Sam Phillips was relieved her character was mute throughout the movie. "But as time went on, I started wanting to speak."
- Sam Phillips said that the sequence where Katya uses a knife to slice up a security guard until he is dead was hard for her to film, but she also admitted that it became easier when she noticed the actor playing the guard looked sort of like a real person she despised: Rush Limbaugh.
- She and Simon's sex scene was added in at the last minute because John McTiernan knew that the film would get an R rating and he might as well put a sex scene in.
- She never says a word and when she and Simon are about to have sex, and throughout the movie if one looks close enough, scars can be seen on her throat.
- She, like Simon, and seemingly all the other terrorists, did not believe that there was a genuine ideological motivation behind the leveling the economic "playing field" of the world plot.
- She appears much later into the novelization of the movie than she does in the actual film.
- She isn't involved in the Federal Reserve robbery in the novelization, and instead appears just before Simon and Targo take off in one of the dump trucks. Like the final film, she ends up killing Targo for Simon.