🎅🎆📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation-Xmas in July🎥📘🎆🎅: 58 Minutes by Walter Wager

Summary:
Basis for the blockbuster film Die Hard 2 starring Bruce Willis.

Traffic is heavy at Kennedy International; all along the East Coast airports have been shut down because of a blizzard. Now, nineteen planes are circling, waiting to put down before Kennedy, too, is forced to close.

Then a man identifying himself as Number One calls the tower...on an unlisted number. The storm is suddenly beyond the point as the tower goes dark.

There are fifty-eight minutes left before the first plane runs out of fuel, and no place available for diversion. Against the inexorable and deadly ticking of the clock a police captain must find out who and how...and stop him before the carnage begins.

1  

DECEMBER 21. 

5:09 P.M. on the western edge of the churning Atlantic. 

It was cold on the island. Light snow was fluttering from a blue-black winter sky, but the men and women peering down from the 86th floor of the famous skyscraper didn't really mind. 

The view from up here was still spectacular. It was also familiar. Many of the tourists on the Empire State Building's open observation deck nodded in approving recognition as they stared at the great city. The promise had been kept. The skyline looked just the way it did in the movies. Even through the shimmering curtain of frozen white crystals, this was clearly the legendary metropolis they'd come from a dozen U.S. states and nine foreign lands to see. 

This was New York—the power place. 

This was the celebrity city against which others were measured. Admired, envied and despised, it was more than a collection of dynamic innovators and achievers known around the world. This cocky and controversial city itself was the celebrity—a vital and cosmopolitan creature that couldn't or wouldn't stand still.

It was moving right now. Some 1,050 feet above the streets, the tourists heard the insistent hum of rush-hour crowds and traffic—the municipal background music of bustling Manhattan. The visitors could almost feel the surging energy below. Suddenly the fabled skyline began to change before their eyes as swirling snow blurred the dramatic panorama. Soon scores of office towers and tall apartment houses were visible only as exotic clusters of lights, suggesting giant Christmas trees in the growing darkness. 

Many of the men and women on the observation deck raised cameras to try to record this extraordinary illusion. Other tourists eyed it intently through coin-operated telescopes mounted on the parapet. There was something almost magical about this glittering sight, and they would talk about it when they returned to their distant homes. 

Nine miles due east of the Empire State Building, someone else was watching the snow fall. He too was a visitor to this city. A thin-faced man in his late thirties, he'd been a visitor everywhere for more than a decade. He traveled so much he rarely recalled that he'd once had a home. When he did remember, it often made him angry. 

Now he was seated on a tweed-upholstered armchair in Room 206 of the Queens Skyway Motel, staring at the television set as the local news continued. Frowning in concentration, he listened carefully to every word spoken by the perfectly barbered meteorologist on screen. 

". . . low pressure north of us. Let's take a look at the latest satellite photos." 

The pictures of the cascading snowflakes vanished. A large multishaded map of the United States and southern Canada abruptly took their place. It was marked with three large curved arrows. From north, south and west, they swept toward the east coast region between Washington and Boston. 

"As you can see, the snow that's falling here now is only the beginning of our problems. There's another load of snow heading our way from the south, and the jet stream is bringing us a juggernaut of icy Arctic air. Add to that some really nasty electrical storms in Pennsylvania that could get to us early tomorrow evening. Of more immediate significance, the National Weather Service is predicting very heavy precipitation for our entire area during the next twelve to fifteen hours," the dapper meteorologist singsonged briskly. 

Then he reappeared on the screen. 

"It looks as if they're right," he continued seamlessly. "Our own computer analysis shows that much of the tri-state region can expect at least a foot of the white stuff by noon tomorrow, and—don't blame me, folks—Mother Nature could sock it to us with as much as sixteen inches." 

The man in Room 206 sat rigid and unblinking. 

He was completely focused on this weather report. 

It was, literally, a matter of life or death for thousands of people. 

That didn't bother him. Death was a part of his business— the part he liked best. He enjoyed killing with a variety of weapons, including the P-15 semiautomatic in the holster under his left armpit. Tonight he'd use a new method. 

"The five P.M. temperature in Central Park was twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit. It's going to drop to twelve or thirteen by midnight." 

Now the weatherman was sharing a split screen with pictures of cars moving through the snow down a wide highway.

"Driving conditions are deteriorating steadily. Traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike is being limited to thirty-five miles an hour. New York State Police have issued Traveler's Advisories for the entire Governor Dewey Throughway. Bottom line? We're facing the first major snowfall of the winter and it could be one of the nastier storms in recent years." 

The man who enjoyed killing smiled. 

This was perfect. 

As the weather report ended, he got up and walked to the closet. Ignoring the banal banter ricocheting between the meteorologist with the fine haircut and the pretty anchorwoman, he reached into the closet and took out a silvery aluminum suitcase. He had bought it after some thought. Thieves at airports sometimes razored open soft-sided luggage to loot the contents. He could not run that risk. 

He put the metal container on the bed, opened the top button of his shirt and slid a hand in to grasp the suitcase key on the chain around his neck. The eighteen-carat gold loop had been a gift from an Italian millionaire's passionate daughter who hated imperialism and her father. She was dead. It was her own fault. If she had followed instructions on how to handle the bomb, she would not have been blown into seven pieces outside the American embassy in Rome. 

She had moaned a lot during sex, he recalled as he unlocked the suitcase. It took only a moment to trip the hidden catch that released the false bottom. Then he took out the upper section filled with shirts and set it down beside the valise. 

Each thing in the secret lower compartment was held in place by a padded clamp welded to the metal shell. He had chosen every item carefully on the basis of years of covert combat in many countries. These were the tools of his lethal trade. 

A stubby Czech submachine gun—the 10.6-inch Skor-pion—plus a shoulder holster and a dozen twenty-round clips of ammunition. 

A bulletproof vest, a gas mask and four small incendiary bombs. 

A disassembled 460 Weatherby Magnum rifle with eight-power telescopic sight and heavy-load, high-speed bullets that could drop an elephant or take off a quarter of a man's head. 

A pair of walkie-talkie radios, three time fuses, a remote-control radio-detonator and a night-vision scope with light intensification power of 35,000. 

Two snub-nosed Heckler and Koch VP70Z pistols and a pouch filled with eighteen-round magazines for the 9-millimeter weapons. 

Screw-on silencers for the submachine and handguns, three L2A1 antipersonnel grenades with a "kill circle" of ten yards and a plastic bag containing a neatly trimmed black wig. 

He scanned his tools and nodded. 

It was time for the next phase of the operation. 

He put on the bulletproof vest. Then he took from the closet and donned a khaki-green Loden coat. Made of sturdy and tightly woven cloth, the waterproof garment was highly efficient in retaining body heat. Efficiency was important to the man in Room 206. It was one of his obsessions. 

He returned to the open suitcase, unclamped and loaded a 9-millimeter pistol and slipped the weapon into the right pocket of the coat. A few seconds later, he put one of the L2A1 grenades in the left pocket. It wasn't that he expected any particular trouble. He routinely carried a grenade as a prudent precaution when he ventured outdoors. 

There was another factor: the imminence of battle. The dangers of combat did not trouble him. They were exhilarating. Though he'd never told anyone, they aroused him more than any woman ever had. But they also made him tautly cautious. The closer this man got to armed confrontation, the more wary he became. In less than three hours, he would launch the biggest and most complex attack of his violent career. He certainly wasn't going to take any chances now. 

After reattaching the false bottom, he locked the suitcase and deposited it in the closet. Then he paused before the large mirror to adjust the curly brown wig that he'd worn since leaving Madrid twenty-three days earlier. Next he put on the horn-rimmed eyeglasses, studied his appearance and finally nodded. With the elementary camouflage of the false hair and equally fake spectacles, he didn't look much like the photo on the Interpol "alert" reports. 

The damned TV set was still on. Reflected in the mirror, the sincere anchorman, who had even better teeth than the ruthlessly perky blond "newscaster" beaming beside him, was burbling abut the new doll that was "definitely this year's hottest gift for the kiddie crowd—and very big bucks for the stores." 

Grunting in contempt, the man who enjoyed killing flicked off the set. As he left the room, he pulled up the hood of the coat to cover three quarters of his head. He couldn't rely absolutely on the wig and glasses. The less of his face that people saw, the smaller the risk of being recognized. He only had to fool the Americans for another four hours.

The plan was good and the timetable was definite. 

By 9:45 P.M., 10:15 at the latest, he'd be out of the country. 

When he reached the motel's crowded lobby, he heard the infuriating music pouring from invisible loudspeakers. He despised Christmas songs as much as he loathed the holy day itself. From the age of eighteen, he had detested every religion and the priests, rabbis, nuns, monks and mullahs who were all enemies of the masses. He'd often told the Russians how wrong they were to let even a token shred of religion survive anywhere in the Soviet Union. They'd smiled patronizingly and ignored him. 

He walked out the front door and his stomach knotted in tension. It was completely automatic. In his trade, he never knew what or who was waiting for him. Ambush was a constant occupational hazard. A hail of bullets could tear his hand off at any moment. The body armor wouldn't help him if they aimed high. Local police might not, but that was exactly what the FBI's coolly practical shooters would do. 

He wouldn't blame them. It was the professional thing to do. In their place, he'd do the same. He already had—in five countries. 

He looked around, saw nothing threatening and relaxed— a little. But he was never totally relaxed. It wasn't only his mind that was always aware of the danger. By now, his body knew in some fierce visceral way—an animal's survival instinct. He hadn't really slept well for years, and his stomach hadn't been right for more than a decade. 

The price of fame, he thought sarcastically. Then he walked through the falling snow to his car. The Americans were obsessed with fame, he brooded as he reached the vehicle. They all wanted to be on television and see their names in newspapers and Time magazine—to be celebrities. Tomorrow he'd be the main celebrity in this media-sick society. They'd all be talking about him. 

And they would fear him. 

He'd like that. 

He hated the Americans most of all. They were the most powerful of the imperialists, and their intelligence networks were leading the global search for him right now. 

He got into the car, inserted the ignition key but did not turn it. Instead, he connected and adjusted the seat belt. He never drove a car without wearing a seat belt. He was only going nine blocks, but statistical studies had established that most auto accidents happened within half a mile of where the trip began. He believed in statistics. 

He checked both the side and rearview mirrors—twice— before he started the motor. Everything seemed to be going well. He was on schedule, the equipment was in place and the rest of the assault group was ready. He had the coins, the radio cube and the slip of flash paper. There were only a few things left to do—simple acts that wouldn't take more than twenty minutes. 

Then he would give the order to attack.

Some terrorist-fighting New York cops just can't catch a break.

Release Date: July 4, 1990
Release Time: 123 minutes

Director: Renny Harlin

Cast:
Bruce Willis as Lieutenant John McClane
Bonnie Bedelia as Holly Gennero-McClane
Art Evans as Leslie Barnes
Dennis Franz as Captain Carmine Lorenzo
Reginald VelJohnson as Sergeant Al Powell
William Atherton as Richard "Dick" Thornburg
Fred Thompson as Ed Trudeau
Tom Bower as Marvin
Sheila McCarthy as Samantha "Sam" Coleman
Colm Meaney as Pilot of Windsor Airlines plane
Robert Costanzo as Sergeant Vito Lorenzo

The terrorists
William Sadler as Colonel Stuart
Franco Nero as General Ramon Esperanza
John Amos as Major Grant
Don Harvey as Garber
Vondie Curtis-Hall as Miller
John Costelloe as Sergeant Oswald Cochrane
Tony Ganios as Baker
Peter Nelson as Thompson
John Leguizamo as Burke
Tom Verica as Kahn
Robert Patrick as O'Reilly
Mick Cunningham as Sheldon
Mark Boone Junior as Shockley
Ken Baldwin as Mulkey

Trailer

Clips

Nothing Lasts Forever  /  58 Minutes

Walter Wager

Wager was best known as an author of mystery and spy fiction; his works included 58 Minutes (1987), whose story was used as the basis of the action film Die Hard 2 in 1990. Two of his other novels became major motion pictures in 1977: Viper Three (1972), which was released as Twilight's Last Gleaming, and Telefon (1975). Wager wrote a number of original novels in the 1960s under the pseudonym "John Tiger" that were based on the TV series I Spy and Mission: Impossible.

Born Walter Herman Wager in the Bronx, NY, he was the son of Russian immigrants, and he attended Columbia College at Columbia University. He graduated in 1944 and later earned a law degree from Harvard; the practice of law interested him less than aviation, however, and Wager subsequently entered a fellowship program at Northwestern University through which he earned a degree in aviation law. He attended the Sorbonne for a year under a Fulbright scholarship at the end of the 1940s, and then turned his attention to earning a living. Wager spent the early '50s working as an aviation law consultant to the government of Israel, and from there moved to an editorial job at the United Nations, where he oversaw the editing of that organization's myriad publications. His interest in writing got him into radio at the tail-end of that medium's era of prominence, authoring scripts, and in his spare time he wrote stories.

He was also a writer and producer for CBS Radio, CBS television, and NBC television and was editor-in-chief of Playbill from 1963 to 1966. In addition, Wager worked in public relations for ASCAP and the University of Bridgeport.

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📘🎥🎅🎆Friday's Film Adaptation-Xmas in July🎆🎅🎥📘: Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp

Summary:
This bestseller was the basis for the blockbuster film "Die Hard" starring Bruce Willis.

High atop a Los Angeles skyscraper, an office Christmas party turns into a deadly cage-match between a lone New York City cop and a gang of international terrorists. Every action fan knows it could only be the explosive big-screen blockbuster Die Hard. But before Bruce Willis blew away audiences as unstoppable hero John McClane, author Roderick Thorp knocked out thriller readers with the bestseller that started it all.

A dozen heavily armed terrorists have taken hostages, issued demands, and promised bloodshed all according to plan. But they haven't counted on a death-defying, one-man cavalry with no shoes, no backup, and no intention of going down easily. As hot-headed cops swarm outside, and cold-blooded killers wield machine guns and rocket launchers inside, the stage is set for the ultimate showdown between anti-hero and uber-villains. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fight to the death. Ho ho ho!

DECEMBER 24

1

… 3:49 P.M., CST … 

“What I don't understand,” the taxi driver shouted over the whacking of the windshield wipers, “is what goes through a person's mind when he mutilates somebody like that.” 

As he glanced over his shoulder in conversational emphasis, the white station wagon thirty feet in front suddenly braked, skidding in the accumulating slush, its massive back end rising like a sounding whale. The passenger in the taxi, Joseph Leland, who had been wondering about something else entirely, perplexed, threw up his hands; the driver reacted, banging his foot on the brake pedal and twisting the wheel. The taxi pitched forward, rotating slowly on its vertical axis, and slammed sideways into the wagon. The right side of Leland's forehead struck the doorpost, drawing blood. He braced for another collision with the car behind, but none came. 

“Shit!” the driver cried, punching the steering wheel. “Shit!” 

“Are you all right?” Leland asked. 

“Yeah.” He saw Leland. “Ah, damn. Damn!”

“Don't worry about it.” On Leland's handkerchief was a jagged stain of blood the size of a postage stamp. 

The driver was black, young, with high cheekbones and almond eyes. He and Leland had been discussing atrocities in Africa. The falling snow had made the ride from the hotel near the huge, stainless steel Gateway downtown a long one; Leland had learned that the driver had come to St. Louis from Birmingham as a single man in the late fifties, and that his son was now an all-city third baseman for his high school team. 

In the bumper-to-bumper traffic near the airport, the conversation turned to violence. As he wheeled the taxi from the Interstate to the airport approach road, the driver brought up the recent sexual maimings in black Africa. Lambert Field, Leland realized, with the driver talking about severed penises. Not Lindbergh, in spite of the St. Louis connection. Lindbergh, a dangerous airport, was in San Diego. Leland had been in and out of St. Louis a dozen times in the past five years, and this was not the first time he had made the mistake. 

Now he was bleeding: for a lot of people, a mature man with a cut on his brow was a falling-down drunk. In spite of that unnerving prospect, Leland was neither upset nor angry. It was not really a bad cut. Because of the accident, he had lost track of something else that had crossed his mind. It began to nag at him. He worked up a new blot on the handkerchief. 

“I'm sorry, man. I'm really sorry.” 

Leland could see it. Now the driver of the wagon opened his door and looked back, unwilling to step out into the mess on the roadway. He was a big, fat man with a moustache, a man-mountain, the kind cops were always careful with. He had a temper to match, too: he scowled at the taxi driver, and jerked his thumb commandingly in the direction of the shoulder of the road. The station wagon rolled forward, spewing slush up against Leland's side of the car. 

“My plane is leaving in twenty minutes,” Leland said. 

“Right. That guy can see me down at the terminal. I'm sorry, man. I really am sorry.” He stopped beside the station wagon, reached over and lowered the right front window, allowing the whirling snow to funnel inside. 

“Pull over!” the big man bellowed. 

“My passenger's bleeding and has to catch a plane—” 

“Don't give me that crap! Pull over!” 

Leland cranked down the rear window. “Let me get to the terminal.” 

The big man studied him a moment. “You're not hurt that bad. Do you know what this guy is going to try on me? Pull over!” he shouted to the taxi driver. 

“He has to catch a plane!” 

“Don't fuck with me, you goddamned nigger! As soon as he's out of the cab, you'll take off!” 

The taxi driver stepped on the gas. “Fuck yourself!” he shouted. He nearly lost control of the vehicle again as he struggled to close the window. “I don't have to put up with that shit!” 

“He's a psycho,” Leland said. “Here's my card. I'll be in California for the next ten days, then I'll be back east. Later, if he makes trouble for you, I'll give you any kind of deposition you want.” 

“It's not later I'm worried about,” the driver said. “I'm worried about now.” 

“As long as I'm in the cab,” Leland said, “we have an ace in the hole.”

The driver glanced in the mirror. “He got back in the traffic. You some kind of a cop?” 

“More of a consultant, these days.” Leland patted his forehead again. “The important thing is that I'm carrying the iron that makes it official.” 

“Jesus. You never do know, do you? Hey, here's something I always wanted to know: How do you get that thing on the plane?” 

“They issue a card. Very special. It can't be copied.” 

“Sure, right, they would have a card. That's funny, like the commercials. Do you know me?” he mocked. He made a gun of his hand. “This is the real American Express.” 

Leland grinned. “I'll have to remember that.” 

The bleeding had lessened, but now his head throbbed. It was going to get worse. The traffic slowed, and the driver glanced up and then over to the mirror on the door. 

“Here he comes.” 

The wagon was on their left. The big man swung it over so that it skidded against the taxicab. Leland moved over and lowered the side window. 

“Don't plug him, man, please.” 

“These guys plug themselves,” Leland said, enjoying the old slang. Like so many blacks, the driver had the gift of language—he had wanted to know what went through a person's mind. Leland had wondered about the driver's choice of words in that context—and then had remembered something else, the thing that had begun eluding him with the accident. “I'm a police officer,” Leland shouted to the big man. “Let us get to the terminal!”

“I told him not to fuck with me! Now I'm telling you the same!” the big man roared, and turned his steering wheel so that the wagon continued to press against the taxi. Leland was thinking of a guy like this who had held off a dozen policemen in a bowling alley in New Jersey, heaving bowling balls like cantaloupes. There was no telling how wild this one was. Leland drew his Browning 9 millimeter, made sure the safety was on, and pushed it through the open windows toward the big man's nose. The Browning was a professional's handgun, thirteen shots in the magazine and room for one in the clip, which was empty now. The big man saw Leland's seriousness. His eyes rolled back and his tongue protruded, curled like a canapé. He thought Leland was going to shoot him in the face … to get on a plane. 

“He'll see you at the terminal,” Leland said to him. 

The big man was motionless, afraid to move. The taxi driver eased forward, the fenders scraping. 

“Jesus,” the driver said. 

Leland was trembling, nearly sick. He could be in deep trouble—at least, have some serious explaining in store. “I made a mistake,” he said to the driver quickly. “It's just a fender-bender. If he tries to push you around, we'll both charge him with assault.” 

“Hey, man, don't worry about it. I saw no gun.” 

Leland got twenty-five dollars out of his wallet. The curving ramp up to the terminal emerged from the falling snow. 

“California, huh?” the driver asked. “I've never had the pleasure.” 

“I'm going to see my daughter in Los Angeles. Then I'm going to drive up the coast to Eureka to see an old friend.”

“Your daughter married?” 

“Divorced. She has two children. Her mother's dead, but we were divorced, too, years ago.” 

“Well, you'll be with your family,” the driver said. “That's the important thing. Me, too. I'm going to have a good Christmas in spite of this. I'll tell you, man, I've never had much luck with Christmas. When I was a little boy, my daddy used to get drunk and beat up on me. I guess it's not all clear sailing for anybody—” 

A 747 rose up over the roof of the terminal, blackening the fishbelly sky and drowning the driver's last words. The station wagon glided by again, the big man glowering at them warily. Leland got another ten from his wallet, then, almost as an afterthought, the I.D. that would get the Browning, loaded, onto the airplane. While the gun was legal, a badge he was carrying was not. It was a New York City detective's badge, a gift from friends in that department, the back engraved THIS MAN IS A PRICK. Leland pushed the twenty-five over the front seat. 

The driver pulled to the curb and flipped the meter flag. “Oh, no, man, this is on me.” 

“Merry Christmas,” Leland said, thrusting the money at him. “Have a nice holiday.” 

The driver took it. The station wagon pulled in front of the taxi. A skycap opened Leland's door. As he got out, Leland gave him the ten. “Get a cop, pronto. The luggage goes to Los Angeles.” 

“Yes, sir. I'll get somebody to ticket your bags. You have yourself a Merry Christmas.” 

Leland felt the beginning of relief. This morning's “Good Morning, America” had reported Los Angeles at seventy-eight degrees. A cop was coming through the terminal crowd toward the automatic doors. Leland raised his hand to hold the cop inside. “Stay in your seat,” he called to the driver. “Merry Christmas to you.”

“You, too. Thanks for your help. Have a nice flight.” 

Leland felt he was abandoning the man. Inside the terminal, he produced for the cop, another black man, the I.D. Woven into the plastic of the card was a coded array of rare metals, and now they sparkled under the terminal lights. 

“Oh, yeah, right, I know you.” The cop, whose name was JOHNSON, T.E., looked over Leland's shoulder, “What's the problem?” 

Leland explained that he had been in the taxi during the accident and that the driver of the wagon had gone berserk. 

Patrolman Johnson eyed Leland. “You wave your piece at him?” 

“I told him I had it,” Leland lied. 

He smiled and glanced at the taxi. “Sounds good. The brother with you on this? Don't juice my fruit.” 

Leland grinned. “Scout's honor. I'd salute, but I'd start bleeding again.” 

“You better have that looked at. Go ahead. Don't worry about this. Have a nice holiday.” 

“Same to you.” Leland kept the identification in hand for the officer at the metal detector. He blotted his forehead again—now he had four large stains on the handkerchief. He had a look at himself in a mirror in the window of a gift shop. It was a real cut, all right, but not deep and barely half an inch long. Something was still bothering him. The officer at the metal detector was another black man: LOPEZ, R.A. Spanish father and black mother? The combination was more common in Los Angeles, and for a second it made Leland wonder dizzily if he had stepped through the looking glass. 

“What flight are you taking?”

“The 905, as far as Los Angeles. I'll be in first class, a Christmas present to myself.” 

“Well, that'll be a helluva flight for somebody to try to hijack. There's two shore patrol riding in economy through to San Diego, and a federal marshal up front with you. I'll let you figure out who he is.” 

“More important, you'd better let him know who I am.” 

Officer Lopez laughed silently. “I'm going to call ahead. What did you do, slip on the ice?” 

“Fender-bender. Nothing serious.” 

“Well, have a nice flight. See how long it takes you to figure out who the marshal is.” 

“Thanks, I love puzzles.” 

The clock in the check-in lounge read 4:04, and passengers were still filing into the umbilical ramp. Leland asked the clerk if he had time for a long-distance call. 

“Oh, you'll be sitting here for quite a few minutes, sir. They're backed up half an hour trying to get equipment out of St. Louis. This is a bad one. We'll shut down by eight o'clock.” 

“There's no chance of us not getting out, is there?” 

“No,” the clerk said, as if Leland were being foolish. 

It took the operator a moment to record Leland's credit card number and put the call through, and another before his daughter's secretary picked up the extension. 

“Oh, Mr. Leland, she's still out to lunch. You're going to be on the same flight, aren't you?” 

He had forgotten the time differential.

“Yes, but I think it's going to be a little late. There's a blizzard here. That's not what I called about.” He didn't know if he should continue. “I was in a little accident outside the airport. I'm not hurt, but I do have a cut on my forehead—” 

“Oh, you poor man. How do you feel?” 

“Well, I guess a little shaken, but I'm all right. I didn't want Stephanie—Ms. Gennaro—getting upset when she saw me.” 

“I'll tell her. Don't worry about a thing.” 

There was a tapping on the telephone booth door: a flight attendant, a woman of thirty-five, her dyed bright yellow hair rolled in a style that dated back to the Kennedy years. KATHI LOGAN, according to her nameplate. Now that she had his attention, she smiled brightly, too youthfully, and did a little curtsying nod. Leland said good-bye to the secretary, being careful not to hang up while she too was wishing him a good flight, and opened the door. Kathi Logan spoke with a professional cheer. 

“Mr. Leland? Are you ready now? We've all been waiting for you.” 

The plane was forty-five minutes getting to the runway. He had to stay in his seat, but Kathi Logan brought him some moistened and dry tissues, her mirror, a Band-Aid, and finally, two aspirin tablets. After she had elicited from him that he was going to visit his daughter, a subtle warmth began to creep into her behavior, indicating she was not a bad detective herself. He was wearing no rings, and a man didn't travel to see his daughter at Christmas without his wife, if he had one. But that was a long way from knowing who he was, or even if he had told the truth about himself. Obviously she was alone, felt she was getting older, and a little frightened. He knew the feeling, and that she still spelled her name cute only made him like her more.

The plane was filled, more like a suburban commuter train than a flight across half a continent. The fellow sitting next to the window had his face in a magazine. Not the federal marshal, he was too small to pass the physical. In her effort to help, Kathi Logan had said that the storm extended to the western edge of Iowa, making the first hour of the flight rocky, so she wouldn't be able to let Leland out of his seat to clean up in the washroom. Leland's seatmate had overheard, and Leland saw him tighten his grip on his Newsweek. 

From the war on, Leland had flown his own planes for more than twenty years, working his way up to a Cessna 310 before he quit. Now he paid no more attention to aviation than any other constant passenger, but he knew that this latest generation of aircraft was the safest ever built. The real problem these days was human error. 

And as for the possibility of air piracy, although none had occurred in the United States in years, there was enough good-guy ordnance aboard to butcher all the people in the no-smoking section. Leland wondered if the marshal on board knew that the other armed passenger in first class had helped design the program that had created his job. At the height of the piracy, Leland had been consulted by the FAA, and now he was caught in the situation the program had been designed to prevent: too many guns. Years had passed since he had had contact with any of it, and because he did not know the latest revisions in procedure, Leland was as good as not trained at all, like the S.P.'s in economy. Too many guns and not enough training. If he was on edge, it was because he knew too much. 

The plane was next in line. A porpoise-nosed DC-10 slipped by in the darkness, followed by the muffled roar of its engines. The 747 started rolling again, and Kathi Logan appeared at his side, steadying herself against the rocking of the aircraft. 

“How about a drink before we get in the air? Would you like a double scotch?”

He smiled. “You wouldn't like me any more. Can I have a Coke? I could use the sugar.” 

“Sure.” 

The pilot was turning for the takeoff run when Kathi Logan came back with the Coke on a tray. She had another smile for him, then hurried back to her seat next to the spiral staircase to the upper deck. Apparently the notion that he was a drunk trying to stay retired did not frighten her. The pilot pushed the throttles to full power. Halfway down the runway, the nose lifted like the end of a teeterboard. Then the rear wheels floated off the ground and they were airborne. 

Leland had been sorting out the Lambert-Lindbergh confusion when the driver had asked his amazing question, turning Leland's thoughts completely around. He had been about to tell the driver that he didn't know what went through a person's mind—when he realized suddenly that in fact he did know. 

As a young detective years ago he had been on a case in which the victim's penis had been cut off. Leland had followed the chain of evidence along the line of least resistance, to the victim's roommate, a drifter with a criminal record. 

After hours of questioning, the drifter, Tesla, finally broke down and confessed. This was in the days when people went to the electric chair every week. Tesla was sentenced to death and electrocuted within the year. 

The case brought Leland to public attention for the third time in his life. A rookie patrolman before the war, he had been in a gunfight in which three men had died, including Leland's partner. As a fighter pilot in Europe, he had shot down over twenty Nazi planes, enough to make a New York publisher ask him to write a book. Leland's presence on the Tesla case, with its elements of forbidden sex and lurid mutilations, made it a media event years before such things had labels. When Leland's personal life shattered not long afterward, he was as confused as anyone. 

Six years later, when Leland, then running a private detective agency, was asked by a pregnant young woman to investigate her husband's leap or fall from the roof of a racetrack, the evidence led back through Leland's own life to the Tesla case. Leland had sent an innocent man to his grave. 

The real killer had been a closet homosexual, unable to accept himself, ravaged with self-hate. His victim, Tesla's roommate, Teddy Leikman, had been a pick-up in a gay bar. At Leikman's apartment, with the hapless Tesla out for the evening, the situation had become more than the killer could bear. 

He beat Teddy Leikman to death with his fists, finally crushing his skull with a piece of pottery—but in the struggle, Leikman gouged the other man's neck, getting bits of skin under his fingernails. The solution the killer hit upon came out of the depths of his soul. He severed Leikman's fingers, and to misdirect the police, he severed his penis, too. It worked because no one thought for a moment that the mutilations were anything but the act of a man shrieking his hatred of himself. 

As an act of self-preservation, the mutilations to conceal evidence finally came to nothing. Six years later, the killer did, indeed, kill himself. 

But not before leaving irrefutable evidence of the biggest municipal fraud since the days of Boss Tweed. 

It was the killer's widow who suffered most of all. A kid who had come up off the streets, she wanted the truth told—she could see the connection between her late husband's secret torments and the profiteering of his business cohorts. She wanted people to see how such stealing added to the burdens of the poor.

None of that happened. Every one of the conspirators was able to weasel out of going to jail. Instead of focusing on the housing fraud, the newspapers turned to the old case, Leland's war record, and on, and on. When a scandal sheet suggested a romance going on between detective and client, Norma moved to San Francisco. Leland didn't see her again for years. 

Leland's Lindbergh-Lambert confusion had its real origins in those years, for he had been that uncomfortable with the personality the media had assigned to him. “Lucky Lindy,” he had called himself more than once, in despair. Like the killer who had eluded him, he had been living two lives and lying to himself about what it meant. His marriage had been disintegrating—and of course he had not solved his big case at all, although he did not know that until later. 

What went on in a person's mind? Nothing at all—at such times, the mind and body were one. But there, Leland thought, there in the blankness, lay the riddle of history.

Detective John McClane inadvertently becomes embroiled in a hostage situation when his wife''s office is taken over by German terrorists, lead by the devilish Hans Gruber.

Release Date: July 15, 1988

Release Time: 132 minutes

Director: John McTiernan

Cast:

Bruce Willis as John McClane

Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber

Alexander Godunov as Karl

Bonnie Bedelia as Holly Gennaro-McClane

Reginald VelJohnson as Sgt. Al Powell

Paul Gleason as Dwayne T. Robinson

De'voreaux White as Argyle

William Atherton as Richard Thornburg

Clarence Gilyard as Theo

Hart Bochner as Harry Ellis

James Shigeta as Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi

Bruno Doyon as Franco
Andreas Wisniewski as Tony Vreski
Joey Plewa as Alexander
Lorenzo Caccialanza as Marco
Gerard Bonn as Kristoff
Dennis Hayden as Eddie
Al Leong as Uli
Gary Roberts as Heinrich
Hans Buhringer as Fritz
Wilhelm von Homburg as James
Robert Davi as FBI Special Agent Big Johnson
Grand L. Bush as FBI Special Agent Little Johnson

Trailer

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58 Minutes by Walter Wager

Author Bio:

Roderick Mayne Thorp, Jr. was an American novelist specializing mainly in crime novels.

As a young college graduate, Thorp worked at a detective agency owned by his father. He would later teach literature and lecture on creative writing at schools and universities in New Jersey and California, and also wrote articles for newspapers and magazines.

Two of his best known novels were adapted into popular films: his 1966 novel The Detective was made into a 1968 film of the same name, starring Frank Sinatra as Detective Joe Leland, and his 1979 sequel to The Detective, Nothing Lasts Forever, was filmed in 1988 as Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis. Though Die Hard was relatively faithful to Nothing Lasts Forever, it was not made as a sequel to the film version of The Detective. Two other Thorp novels, Rainbow Drive and Devlin, were adapted into TV movies.

Thorp died of a heart attack in Oxnard, California.

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📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: 58 Minutes by Walter Wager

Summary:
Basis for the blockbuster film Die Hard 2 starring Bruce Willis.

Traffic is heavy at Kennedy International; all along the East Coast airports have been shut down because of a blizzard. Now, nineteen planes are circling, waiting to put down before Kennedy, too, is forced to close.

Then a man identifying himself as Number One calls the tower...on an unlisted number. The storm is suddenly beyond the point as the tower goes dark.

There are fifty-eight minutes left before the first plane runs out of fuel, and no place available for diversion. Against the inexorable and deadly ticking of the clock a police captain must find out who and how...and stop him before the carnage begins.

1  

DECEMBER 21. 

5:09 P.M. on the western edge of the churning Atlantic. 

It was cold on the island. Light snow was fluttering from a blue-black winter sky, but the men and women peering down from the 86th floor of the famous skyscraper didn't really mind. 

The view from up here was still spectacular. It was also familiar. Many of the tourists on the Empire State Building's open observation deck nodded in approving recognition as they stared at the great city. The promise had been kept. The skyline looked just the way it did in the movies. Even through the shimmering curtain of frozen white crystals, this was clearly the legendary metropolis they'd come from a dozen U.S. states and nine foreign lands to see. 

This was New York—the power place. 

This was the celebrity city against which others were measured. Admired, envied and despised, it was more than a collection of dynamic innovators and achievers known around the world. This cocky and controversial city itself was the celebrity—a vital and cosmopolitan creature that couldn't or wouldn't stand still.

It was moving right now. Some 1,050 feet above the streets, the tourists heard the insistent hum of rush-hour crowds and traffic—the municipal background music of bustling Manhattan. The visitors could almost feel the surging energy below. Suddenly the fabled skyline began to change before their eyes as swirling snow blurred the dramatic panorama. Soon scores of office towers and tall apartment houses were visible only as exotic clusters of lights, suggesting giant Christmas trees in the growing darkness. 

Many of the men and women on the observation deck raised cameras to try to record this extraordinary illusion. Other tourists eyed it intently through coin-operated telescopes mounted on the parapet. There was something almost magical about this glittering sight, and they would talk about it when they returned to their distant homes. 

Nine miles due east of the Empire State Building, someone else was watching the snow fall. He too was a visitor to this city. A thin-faced man in his late thirties, he'd been a visitor everywhere for more than a decade. He traveled so much he rarely recalled that he'd once had a home. When he did remember, it often made him angry. 

Now he was seated on a tweed-upholstered armchair in Room 206 of the Queens Skyway Motel, staring at the television set as the local news continued. Frowning in concentration, he listened carefully to every word spoken by the perfectly barbered meteorologist on screen. 

". . . low pressure north of us. Let's take a look at the latest satellite photos." 

The pictures of the cascading snowflakes vanished. A large multishaded map of the United States and southern Canada abruptly took their place. It was marked with three large curved arrows. From north, south and west, they swept toward the east coast region between Washington and Boston. 

"As you can see, the snow that's falling here now is only the beginning of our problems. There's another load of snow heading our way from the south, and the jet stream is bringing us a juggernaut of icy Arctic air. Add to that some really nasty electrical storms in Pennsylvania that could get to us early tomorrow evening. Of more immediate significance, the National Weather Service is predicting very heavy precipitation for our entire area during the next twelve to fifteen hours," the dapper meteorologist singsonged briskly. 

Then he reappeared on the screen. 

"It looks as if they're right," he continued seamlessly. "Our own computer analysis shows that much of the tri-state region can expect at least a foot of the white stuff by noon tomorrow, and—don't blame me, folks—Mother Nature could sock it to us with as much as sixteen inches." 

The man in Room 206 sat rigid and unblinking. 

He was completely focused on this weather report. 

It was, literally, a matter of life or death for thousands of people. 

That didn't bother him. Death was a part of his business— the part he liked best. He enjoyed killing with a variety of weapons, including the P-15 semiautomatic in the holster under his left armpit. Tonight he'd use a new method. 

"The five P.M. temperature in Central Park was twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit. It's going to drop to twelve or thirteen by midnight." 

Now the weatherman was sharing a split screen with pictures of cars moving through the snow down a wide highway.

"Driving conditions are deteriorating steadily. Traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike is being limited to thirty-five miles an hour. New York State Police have issued Traveler's Advisories for the entire Governor Dewey Throughway. Bottom line? We're facing the first major snowfall of the winter and it could be one of the nastier storms in recent years." 

The man who enjoyed killing smiled. 

This was perfect. 

As the weather report ended, he got up and walked to the closet. Ignoring the banal banter ricocheting between the meteorologist with the fine haircut and the pretty anchorwoman, he reached into the closet and took out a silvery aluminum suitcase. He had bought it after some thought. Thieves at airports sometimes razored open soft-sided luggage to loot the contents. He could not run that risk. 

He put the metal container on the bed, opened the top button of his shirt and slid a hand in to grasp the suitcase key on the chain around his neck. The eighteen-carat gold loop had been a gift from an Italian millionaire's passionate daughter who hated imperialism and her father. She was dead. It was her own fault. If she had followed instructions on how to handle the bomb, she would not have been blown into seven pieces outside the American embassy in Rome. 

She had moaned a lot during sex, he recalled as he unlocked the suitcase. It took only a moment to trip the hidden catch that released the false bottom. Then he took out the upper section filled with shirts and set it down beside the valise. 

Each thing in the secret lower compartment was held in place by a padded clamp welded to the metal shell. He had chosen every item carefully on the basis of years of covert combat in many countries. These were the tools of his lethal trade. 

A stubby Czech submachine gun—the 10.6-inch Skor-pion—plus a shoulder holster and a dozen twenty-round clips of ammunition. 

A bulletproof vest, a gas mask and four small incendiary bombs. 

A disassembled 460 Weatherby Magnum rifle with eight-power telescopic sight and heavy-load, high-speed bullets that could drop an elephant or take off a quarter of a man's head. 

A pair of walkie-talkie radios, three time fuses, a remote-control radio-detonator and a night-vision scope with light intensification power of 35,000. 

Two snub-nosed Heckler and Koch VP70Z pistols and a pouch filled with eighteen-round magazines for the 9-millimeter weapons. 

Screw-on silencers for the submachine and handguns, three L2A1 antipersonnel grenades with a "kill circle" of ten yards and a plastic bag containing a neatly trimmed black wig. 

He scanned his tools and nodded. 

It was time for the next phase of the operation. 

He put on the bulletproof vest. Then he took from the closet and donned a khaki-green Loden coat. Made of sturdy and tightly woven cloth, the waterproof garment was highly efficient in retaining body heat. Efficiency was important to the man in Room 206. It was one of his obsessions. 

He returned to the open suitcase, unclamped and loaded a 9-millimeter pistol and slipped the weapon into the right pocket of the coat. A few seconds later, he put one of the L2A1 grenades in the left pocket. It wasn't that he expected any particular trouble. He routinely carried a grenade as a prudent precaution when he ventured outdoors. 

There was another factor: the imminence of battle. The dangers of combat did not trouble him. They were exhilarating. Though he'd never told anyone, they aroused him more than any woman ever had. But they also made him tautly cautious. The closer this man got to armed confrontation, the more wary he became. In less than three hours, he would launch the biggest and most complex attack of his violent career. He certainly wasn't going to take any chances now. 

After reattaching the false bottom, he locked the suitcase and deposited it in the closet. Then he paused before the large mirror to adjust the curly brown wig that he'd worn since leaving Madrid twenty-three days earlier. Next he put on the horn-rimmed eyeglasses, studied his appearance and finally nodded. With the elementary camouflage of the false hair and equally fake spectacles, he didn't look much like the photo on the Interpol "alert" reports. 

The damned TV set was still on. Reflected in the mirror, the sincere anchorman, who had even better teeth than the ruthlessly perky blond "newscaster" beaming beside him, was burbling abut the new doll that was "definitely this year's hottest gift for the kiddie crowd—and very big bucks for the stores." 

Grunting in contempt, the man who enjoyed killing flicked off the set. As he left the room, he pulled up the hood of the coat to cover three quarters of his head. He couldn't rely absolutely on the wig and glasses. The less of his face that people saw, the smaller the risk of being recognized. He only had to fool the Americans for another four hours.

The plan was good and the timetable was definite. 

By 9:45 P.M., 10:15 at the latest, he'd be out of the country. 

When he reached the motel's crowded lobby, he heard the infuriating music pouring from invisible loudspeakers. He despised Christmas songs as much as he loathed the holy day itself. From the age of eighteen, he had detested every religion and the priests, rabbis, nuns, monks and mullahs who were all enemies of the masses. He'd often told the Russians how wrong they were to let even a token shred of religion survive anywhere in the Soviet Union. They'd smiled patronizingly and ignored him. 

He walked out the front door and his stomach knotted in tension. It was completely automatic. In his trade, he never knew what or who was waiting for him. Ambush was a constant occupational hazard. A hail of bullets could tear his hand off at any moment. The body armor wouldn't help him if they aimed high. Local police might not, but that was exactly what the FBI's coolly practical shooters would do. 

He wouldn't blame them. It was the professional thing to do. In their place, he'd do the same. He already had—in five countries. 

He looked around, saw nothing threatening and relaxed— a little. But he was never totally relaxed. It wasn't only his mind that was always aware of the danger. By now, his body knew in some fierce visceral way—an animal's survival instinct. He hadn't really slept well for years, and his stomach hadn't been right for more than a decade. 

The price of fame, he thought sarcastically. Then he walked through the falling snow to his car. The Americans were obsessed with fame, he brooded as he reached the vehicle. They all wanted to be on television and see their names in newspapers and Time magazine—to be celebrities. Tomorrow he'd be the main celebrity in this media-sick society. They'd all be talking about him. 

And they would fear him. 

He'd like that. 

He hated the Americans most of all. They were the most powerful of the imperialists, and their intelligence networks were leading the global search for him right now. 

He got into the car, inserted the ignition key but did not turn it. Instead, he connected and adjusted the seat belt. He never drove a car without wearing a seat belt. He was only going nine blocks, but statistical studies had established that most auto accidents happened within half a mile of where the trip began. He believed in statistics. 

He checked both the side and rearview mirrors—twice— before he started the motor. Everything seemed to be going well. He was on schedule, the equipment was in place and the rest of the assault group was ready. He had the coins, the radio cube and the slip of flash paper. There were only a few things left to do—simple acts that wouldn't take more than twenty minutes. 

Then he would give the order to attack.

Some terrorist-fighting New York cops just can't catch a break.

Release Date: July 4, 1990
Release Time: 123 minutes

Director: Renny Harlin

Cast:
Bruce Willis as Lieutenant John McClane
Bonnie Bedelia as Holly Gennero-McClane
Art Evans as Leslie Barnes
Dennis Franz as Captain Carmine Lorenzo
Reginald VelJohnson as Sergeant Al Powell
William Atherton as Richard "Dick" Thornburg
Fred Thompson as Ed Trudeau
Tom Bower as Marvin
Sheila McCarthy as Samantha "Sam" Coleman
Colm Meaney as Pilot of Windsor Airlines plane
Robert Costanzo as Sergeant Vito Lorenzo

The terrorists
William Sadler as Colonel Stuart
Franco Nero as General Ramon Esperanza
John Amos as Major Grant
Don Harvey as Garber
Vondie Curtis-Hall as Miller
John Costelloe as Sergeant Oswald Cochrane
Tony Ganios as Baker
Peter Nelson as Thompson
John Leguizamo as Burke
Tom Verica as Kahn
Robert Patrick as O'Reilly
Mick Cunningham as Sheldon
Mark Boone Junior as Shockley
Ken Baldwin as Mulkey

Trailer

Clips

Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp

Author Bio:

Wager was best known as an author of mystery and spy fiction; his works included 58 Minutes (1987), whose story was used as the basis of the action film Die Hard 2 in 1990. Two of his other novels became major motion pictures in 1977: Viper Three (1972), which was released as Twilight's Last Gleaming, and Telefon (1975). Wager wrote a number of original novels in the 1960s under the pseudonym "John Tiger" that were based on the TV series I Spy and Mission: Impossible.

Born Walter Herman Wager in the Bronx, NY, he was the son of Russian immigrants, and he attended Columbia College at Columbia University. He graduated in 1944 and later earned a law degree from Harvard; the practice of law interested him less than aviation, however, and Wager subsequently entered a fellowship program at Northwestern University through which he earned a degree in aviation law. He attended the Sorbonne for a year under a Fulbright scholarship at the end of the 1940s, and then turned his attention to earning a living. Wager spent the early '50s working as an aviation law consultant to the government of Israel, and from there moved to an editorial job at the United Nations, where he oversaw the editing of that organization's myriad publications. His interest in writing got him into radio at the tail-end of that medium's era of prominence, authoring scripts, and in his spare time he wrote stories.

He was also a writer and producer for CBS Radio, CBS television, and NBC television and was editor-in-chief of Playbill from 1963 to 1966. In addition, Wager worked in public relations for ASCAP and the University of Bridgeport.

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