Was Simon Gruber as ruthless as he made himself to be? [closed]

This movie was even more incredible than what I remembered. Everything just flowed perfectly and all the characters were on point.

Simon made it clear that he would never bomb a school full of children, but did he really believe McClane would be able to stop the bomb from vaporizing everyone in the train? I guess being willing to blow up a few people to further his goals would be looked at differently than targeting an entire school.

You could even see how reluctant one of his henchmen were at the idea of leaving a bomb out in the open for some kid to find. Simon seemed like he wanted to avoid as much collateral damage as possible outside of the subway bombing. It all just seems to go against the idea of bombing anything in general.