Daniel Harper

"You don't get it, do you? The money has changed hands. These are not the kind of people you CANCEL ON!! You get those guns out of the country tonight or you're a dead man!"

- Harper ordering Deguerin to cover the tracks of their plan to sell the railguns

Daniel Harper is the secondary antagonist in the 1996 action thriller film, Eraser. He is the corrupt U.S. Undersecretary of Defense acting as the boss of Robert Deguerin and the mastermind behind a scandal to sell rail-guns on the black market.

He was portrayed by Andy Romano.

Role
During the beginning of the film, U.S. Marshal John Kruger (the hero of the film) and the FBI have caught wind of an arms sale formulated by a weapons company called Cyrez Corporation to sell electronic pulse rifles to Russian mobsters lead by the infamous terrorist Sergei Ivanovich Petrofsky for a sum of $52 million, which may lead into a new era of world terrorism. After Cyrez Corporation executive Lee Cullen procure two discs containing the evidence following the suicide of Cyrez CEO William Donahue (who was a major player in the conspiracy), she gives one of the discs to the FBI before Kruger is assigned to protect her by having her to hide in New York City.

However, the FBI's disc is secretly stolen by a clerk working for Harper, who retrieves it, revealing himself to be the real mastermind behind the arms sale. Despite retrieving the disc, Harper is angry to learn from his co-conspirator Morehart at Cyrez that Cullen has the other disc containing the evidence and that she talked to a Washington Herald reporter named Claire Issacs about the story. Harper orders both Cullen and Issacs to be killed at once before destroying his disc.

Though the hit on Issacs was a success, Harper is angry to learn from Deguerin (who is working as the mole in WITSEC) that Cullen is escaping away thanks to Kruger's efforts. During a ride on their limousine, Deguerin suggests cancelling the shipment to avoid any heat from the authorities, but Harper refuses and angrily threatens to have Deguerin killed if he doesn't finish the job of selling away the rail-guns. Deguerin then suggests setting up a trap at Cyrez, deducing that Kruger and Cullen will head over there to access their disc that will expose the scandal. To that point, Harper agrees to Deguerin's idea, demanding that not only the rail-guns will be sent away, but that the disc be destroyed and both Kruger and Cullen be killed before next dawn.

Though Deguerin manages to destroy the disc, kidnap Cullen, and bring her to the docks to oversee the shipment in Petrofsky's freighter ship, Kruger (with the help of a mob witness named Johnny Castleone and his cousin Tony, who owns the docks) stops the shipments by killing down Degeurin's men, including Petrofsky and his men. Degeurin, despite being injured, is then exposed and handed over to the authorities. As a result of this event, Harper's role behind the arms sale is exposed and he is presumably taken into custody along with his co-conspirators.

The next day, a hearing takes place, but Deguerin, Harper, and Morehart manage to escape charges of treason, since a conviction and sentence for them will not be possible under civil law jurisdiction. As they leave in their limousine, Kruger fakes his and Lee's deaths by blowing up a vehicle in front of a large crowd of witnesses, including Harper himself. Deguerin believes the explosion had been set up by Harper, but Harper assumed vice versa. The conspirators soon realize that no one within their inner circle had actually arranged it. The limousine then suddenly comes to an abrupt halt on a train crossing, and the doors lock themselves shut. The driver, who turns out to be Johnny himself in disguise, exits from the limo and runs off from the area. Harper anxiously looks around before Deguerin receives a phone call from Kruger, stating that he and his cohorts are about to be "erased". Looking out of the window, Harper, Deguerin and Morehart see a freight train steadily approaching them, and Kruger and Johnny stand by to watch it smash into the limousine, finally killing Harper and his conspirators for good.

Trivia

 * Despite Deguerin serving as the primary villain of the film, Harper might be considered as the real villain of the film, as he assigned Deguerin to destroy any obstacles to their plan, including the task of killing Lee and Kruger, which sets off much of the plot.