Payback: John Hayes #6 (PAPERBACK)

Pages: 366

Size: 5" x 8" (147mm x 243mm)

Format: Paperback

Series: Book 6, The John Hayes Thrillers

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Hatay Province, Turkey, 2015

The girl thrust her hands deeper into her pockets in an effort to keep warm and hugged her arms closer to her body.

She looked up at the vast expanse of stars above her. It was a beautiful clear night, not a cloud in the sky, and the light from the moon bathed everything in a silvery glow.

It could have been magical, but for what lay ahead.

She tuned back into the murmured conversations around her—a mixture of languages, German, French, and English—but the volume was too low for her to make out anything, and besides, English was the only language in which she was fluent.

The man who called himself Abu Bakr came around the front of the SUV and stood in front of them. He was fat with a long straggly beard and a severely receding hairline. He spoke English with a thick accent she couldn’t place. He pointed down the dirt track that ran along the fence line.

“Walk down that way for about five-hundred meters. There will be someone there. He will show you how to get through.” He turned back to face them, looking at each of their faces one by one, his eyes resting on her for a moment longer than necessary. “Do you all understand?”

A low chorus of agreement and nods went through the group.

“Don’t touch the fence except for where he tells you. It’s electrified.” He looked at them again to make sure they all understood before continuing. “Once you get through, run. Run as far as you can.”

One of the men, a French speaker, spoke up, “Ow do we know where to go.”

Abu Bakr grinned, his mouth opening to display a row of crooked teeth. “Don’t worry. You will know. Someone will meet you. It’s all arranged.”

The girl gave a nervous smile to her companion and shifted her weight. She thought again about what she was doing. Was it the right thing? She had never been away from home like this before. She was scared, but... also excited. Another world was out there, waiting for her. A new promised land, a land where people could live as they were supposed to as it was written in the great book. And who better to go there with but the young man she loved, the man who had swept her off her feet back in the courtyards of the university, what seemed like just a short time ago. It had been a whirlwind, but everything she had imagined romance to be. He smiled back at her and laid a reassuring hand on her arm. She nodded and looked back at Abu Bakr, who was watching them with narrowed eyes. He looked away, his lip curling in a sneer, and addressed the group again.

“Ma salaam. Good journey. Allahu Akbar!”

“Allahu akbar,” the group repeated, a couple of men slapping each other on the back.

Abu Bakr gestured toward the track, “Now go.”

The five men and one girl started walking in the direction he had shown. A high, chain-link fence lined the track on their left while to their right, fields of olive trees stretched off into the darkness. The group walked in nervous silence, the only sound from scuffed feet and pebbles rolling away.

The girl looked back over her shoulder, but Abu Bakr and his vehicle had already gone. There was no-one around. They were alone... at least that’s what they thought.

A figure materialized out of the darkness, gesturing for them to hurry, and pointed toward the fence. As they neared, they saw someone had cut the fence, and the two sides were peeled back to make a hole just big enough for a body to pass through.

“Through there,” the man hissed. “Hurry.”

“The power?” asked one of the men in the group.

The man grinned. “Don’t worry. It’s cut. Now go.”

One by one, the group eased themselves through the fence and waited for the others. The girl was last. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes—it was now or never. She opened them and saw her companion kneeling on the other side of the fence, his hand reaching through the hole in the fence.

 She nodded, crouched down, took his hand, and scrambled through the hole.

“Yalla, yalla. Run!”

“Which way?”

The man pointed into the darkness. “That way. Allahu akbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!”