Those Disciples were In it to Win it

There's a thought that keeps rolling around in my head after what I saw of the Bible tv series and from doing a Beth Moore study on James, the brother of Jesus.  That thought being the disciples died pretty grisly deaths.  Upon my googling, evidently there is a couple that we don't have details on, but the other deaths are pretty nasty, as in:  stoning, lancing, clubbing (and not the kind with black lights and a beat), swords, beheadings and more crucifixion.
What catches my attention here is that the disciples did not have a CNN 24 hour news cycle and Paul did not have a facebook.  It's not like Matthew tweeted out a selfie of himself spreading the word in Ethiopia.  There wasn't an amber alert system to warn these new nations that there was a follower of Jesus in the land and he was about 5'9", 34 years old with dark brown hair.
My point being, they could have quietly slipped into a crowd, mixed up their look a bit, stopped talking about Jesus and nobody would have been any wiser.  The world didn't know who they were - they told people who they were and what they believed and they continued to do so.  In all of their trips to spread the word, not a one of them got on a boat to land on another shore and start a brand new life as a new person that didn't talk about Jesus.  They could have disappeared but they did not.
To me, this confirms even more that they really believed what they were saying and the gospel is true.  The Bible doesn't act like these guys weren't flawed humans.  They were not perfect.  We know Peter denies Him a time or three, but that doesn't stop him from picking a violent death over denying Him again.  It's not as though they didn't see the first couple of guys go down and not understand this was their fate if they kept going.  I'd have to think that a charade could be maintained for a while, but by so many for so long when they knew what pain was coming?  To see your best friends murdered but to rebelliously spread word of a scandalous love and grace anyway?  Only the Oceans 11 guys could have pulled off anything close to this, and I think torture would have broken them.  It's not human for them to have kept going.  Fear can make the best of us turn on one another, and what is more fear inducing than being run through with a spear?
So, while everybody else seemed hung up on whether Samson could really have been black, I couldn't get past the dedication to the truth that stole victory from death.

** - I know Paul wasn't a disciple but he had all that traveling by boat/jail/death stuff too so he counts for this.