25 Hours - The Last Hostage by R L Humphries

Jake Barlow and his wife Anne have been living a sedate life, after Jake has helped the Police solve some difficult murders. He and Anne were threatened at these times, and were glad to be finished with dead bodies, guns and knives. He begins to write books and life is peaceful. Until Jake goes into Brisbane city to do some banking and then looks forward to meeting beautiful Anne for lunch. It's a nice spring morning and Jake is at peace, waiting for his appointment at the bank. He sees three young men of middle eastern appearance come into the bank and then begin shooting, killing a security guard and taking over the bank. When things calm they let it be known that their 20 hostages will be sacrificed until the Australian people contribute ten million dollars to a ransom fund. They have three million from the bank so need seven million. Jake takes a lead role and, despite being bashed by the Jihadists, continues to try to reason with them. When donations to the ransom slow, the Muslims kill two hostages and a plain cloths policeman, detected because of his concealed pistol. The bandits decide to use Jake as a conduit for their demands, through Anne, who eventually is in touch with the Prime Minister. Jake formulates a secret plan but things go wrong until Jake can reason with the Muslims. Their demands for safe transport with the ransom money are met and they travel to an aerodrome where a jet plane awaits. Jake is tied and is kept by the bandits as the last hostage after they release all the others. They are going to take Jake to Syria where they will publicly behead him because he's been a difficult hostage Jake is securely bound with tape and a necklace bomb and a suicide bomb are attached. The watching Annie thinks that, finally, her husband has met his match. She watches , in agony, as the TV shows Jake being loaded on the jet, which takes off for Syria and his certain death. But she still has faith in her husband...