世事无常 (1979)

Nothing Lasts Forever is a 1979 action thriller novel by American author Roderick Thorp, a sequel to his 1966 novel The Detective. It continues the story of detective Joseph Leland, now retired and having divorced from his late wife, as he goes to Los Angeles to reconcile with his estranged daughter, only to be caught up in a hostage crisis at the office complex where she works and fight a team of politically-motivated European terrorists to save her, which severely impairs his mental state.

The novel is mostly known through its 1988 film adaptation Die Hard starring Bruce Willis.

Plot

Retired NYPD detective and recovering alcoholic Joe Leland is visiting the 40-story office headquarters of the Klaxon Oil Corporation in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, where his daughter Stephanie Leland Gennaro works. On the flight to LA, he makes a connection with airline stewardess Kathi Logan before landing, whereupon he is picked up by a limousine and driven to the Klaxon tower.

While Leland is waiting for his daughter's Christmas party to end, German Autumn–era terrorist Anton "Little Tony the Red" Gruber and his heavily armed team of twelve seize the skyscraper and take all 74 guests hostage, including Stephanie's daughter and son. Leland knows about Gruber, the son of a Nazi SS officer living off the riches his father made as a war profiteer from World War II, through a counter-terrorist conference he attended years prior and can recall much of his personal information from his dossier. Barefoot after an exercise to relieve the stress of jetlag, Leland slips away during the chaos of the takeover and watches in secret as Gruber and the terrorists kill Rivers, the CEO of Klaxon, and proceed to steal documents that will publicly expose Klaxon's dealings with Chile's junta. They also intend to deprive Klaxon of the proceeds of the corrupt deal of $6 million in cash by attempting to access a safe.

Leland agrees with the terrorists' motive, but not their actions, and ends up facing them single-handedly in order to save Stephanie. He kills them one-by-one, beginning with Hans, brother of Gruber's second-in-command Karl, and taking his automatic weapon and handheld radio. Reaching out to the LAPD from the roof but monitored by Gruber, Leland eludes the terrorists by crawling through the tower's ventilation system, then gets the police's attention by throwing another terrorist's corpse out the side of the building. As the police send reinforcements, Leland requests to contact Kathi as well, and she is brought to the scene as a witness.

After Leland kills more terrorists, he takes some plastic explosives and detonators from a female terrorist's corpse. Despite being forced to walk barefoot on broken glass as a trap laid by the terrorists, Leland establishes a friendly contact with police sergeant Al Powell, to whom he explains the crisis. The police attempt to fight back against the terrorists despite Leland warning them not to do so, and he sends an improvised chair bomb falling down an elevator shaft to kill some of the terrorists on a lower floor. Deputy Chief Dwayne T. Robinson, Powell's belligerent supervisor, takes over the situation, believing that Leland is one of the terrorists despite Powell's argument to the contrary.

Stephanie's sleazy fellow executive and extramarital lover Harry Ellis attempts to negotiate peace with Gruber by promising to convince Leland to surrender, but Gruber shoots him dead when Leland refuses. Cornered by assault helicopters on the roof, which the terrorists have rigged to detonate so they can fake their deaths, Leland escapes by rappelling down the side of the building with a fire hose just before the roof explodes, then shoots his way back into the tower and untethers himself from the hose before its spool can drag him back out. Enraged by Hans's death, Karl sets out to personally kill Leland, who seemingly kills him. Gruber figures out who Leland's daughter is and contacts her by radio while reporters throng Kathi with questions.

With most of the terrorists killed and most of the hostages evacuated, a battered and bloodthirsty Leland locates and confronts Gruber, who holds his daughter hostage. Stephanie apologizes to her father for her role in the deal that sparked the terrorist attack and his involvement. Leland appears to surrender but quickly draws his Browning pistol taped to his back and wounds Gruber, who shoots Stephanie in the stomach as he stumbles through a window and falls to his death, taking her with him. Blaming Klaxon for the terrorist attack and his daughter's death, Leland throws the cash out of the window himself. He finds the last terrorist, a young woman, who surrenders before he kills her. Once Leland leaves the building, Karl returns, having survived, and starts a shooting rampage, killing several police officers (including Robinson), reporters, and a doctor in the process, as well as injuring Leland, before Powell finally kills him. Leland falls unconscious as he receives medical care.

Characters

Joseph Leland – an aging, retired New York Police detective and World War II veteran

Stephanie Gennaro – Leland's estranged daughter and an important Klaxon Oil executive

Anton "Little Tony The Red" Gruber – the ruthless leader of the terrorists, who orchestrates the siege on Klaxon's headquarters

Al Powell – a young Los Angeles Police sergeant sent to the Klaxon tower to check on an emergency call made by Leland, with whom he remotely communicates during the siege

Dwayne Robinson – the Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Police sent to take charge of the situation at hand

Karl – Gruber's second-in-command

Mr. Rivers – the president of Klaxon and Stephanie's boss

Harry Ellis – a sleazy Klaxon executive with whom Stephanie is having an affair