Several years after the incidents in the first "Die Hard", police officer John McLaine (Bruce Willis) is waiting at Dulles International Airport near Christmas for his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) to arrive on an evening flight. However, terrorists take control of the airport and threaten to cause airliners, among them one with his wife aboard, to crash as part of a plot to free Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero), and McClaine must once again act on his own to stop them and save the lives of the passengers. Complicating matters is reporter Richard Thornburg (William Atherton), who is on his wife's plane, curmudgeon airport cop Capt. Carmine Lorenzo (Denis Franz), and an elite anti-terror squad led by Col. Stuart (William Sadler).