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As McClane explains to Zeus while handcuffed on the ship, Holly and he got into a fight over the phone and she hung up on him and he never called her back. This was about a year before "Vengeance" takes place.
McClane says in Die Hard 2 that he only moved to LA to be with Holly and so she wouldn't need to leave her great career there. If they separated again, its entirely possible he would move back to New York and resume his job with the NYPD.Alternatively, Die Hard with a Vengeance could chronologically take place before Die Hard 2 but after Die Hard, making it a kind of middle prequel. If that were the case, it would explain why John and Holly were still at odds with each other (they hadn't made up yet) and he would still be working for the NYPD prior to transferring to the LAPD (after he and Holly made up).The first answer is just as likely as the second considering they are divorced and on bad terms with each other in Live Free or Die Hard, and, of course, depending on the intended chronological time line.
Either he was watching them, or likely because they were specifically assigned to track and capture Peter Krieg/Simon Gruber. So he likely had a few run-ins with them.
They are obviously played by the same actor. But it could be said that John befriended him when he transferred to L.A., and then when John transferred back to New York his friend Ricky Walsh a.k.a. 'Young Cop' came with him. It was suggested they were partners or at least good friends in this film.
Strictly speaking, no - to date, this is the only Die Hard film with an original storyline, as the two preceding films were based on novels, and the following film was based on a magazine article. However, the screenplay was in fact originally written by Jonathan Hensleigh as a spec script for Lethal Weapon 4, but eventually got picked up by the producers of the Die Hard franchise. Its Lethal Weapon roots are arguably visible in that it's much more of a "buddy movie" than the first two Die Hards.
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