Hostage to Death

ORDERS SAY HOLD THE RAILROAD. HONOR SAYS SAVE THE HOSTAGE.

Lieutenant Bill Reilly has one order: hold the railhead.

The French Foreign Legion officer and his men are guarding a vital railroad in Morocco when a severed hand arrives with a message from Berber leader Abd el-Ulad. He is holding an American woman named Kay MacArthur. Tomorrow, the message warns, he will send one of her hands.

Reilly knows it could be a trap. His orders are explicit: under no circumstances is he to leave the railhead. But he also knows he cannot leave Kay to die.

He makes his choice.

Reilly leads fifty Legionnaires into the Atlas Mountains, fighting through an ambush to reach Kay and bring her out alive. But the threat was exactly what he feared—a trap designed to draw him away from his post. In his absence, the railroad is attacked and a train carrying Spanish soldiers is destroyed.

Reilly saved a life by disobeying an order. Now he must answer for the lives lost because he did.

Court-martialed for deserting his post, Reilly faces the destruction of his military career and fifteen years in a penal battalion—a sentence few men survive. But the fighting in Morocco is far from over, and Reilly is about to discover that the disaster at the railroad was only part of a much larger conflict.

Set against the French Foreign Legion and the Rif conflict in North Africa, Hostage to Death is fast-paced military historical fiction driven by an impossible choice between duty and conscience. Battlefield action, military discipline, divided loyalties and escalating danger make this a military adventure in which one officer must live with the consequences of doing what he believes is right.

“Rife with action and adventure.” —Library Journal

Drawing on his own military service and firsthand familiarity with military life, L. Ron Hubbard crafted stories of duty, courage, leadership and sacrifice when men are tested under fire.

Part of the L. Ron Hubbard Military & War Collection—14 books featuring 25 classic stories—available in paperback, eBook and full-cast dramatized audiobook. If you enjoy the classic adventures of Alistair MacLean and W. E. B. Griffin, discover another master storyteller of military adventures.

Enjoy both the book and the audiobook. Also available as a professionally produced, full-cast dramatized audiobook.