"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence."

Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.

— Samuel P. Huntington1

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Chapter 1

Monday, April 15th, 2013, 2:41pm

Boston, MA

Patriots’ Day — the 117th running of the Boston Marathon

Amanda Kraft was killing it.

She was exactly on time, on Pace (always with a capital “P”), and in control.

The crowds, unbroken along both sides of the route for the past almost four hours, were ten or twelve deep now. She had expected to experience her first marathon in a kind of never-ending personal hell, focused completely inward in order to will her body through the long, grueling course. Instead, she had been delighted to realize that she was anything but alone as the miles slowly rolled by. She must have run past literally hundreds of thousands of people today, every single one of them urging her on with applause, shouted words of encouragement, cups of water, and unflagging positive energy. She was high on it.

High on that, and the fact that she had been running nine-and-a-half minute miles every mile for the last… a few more strides and she passed another marker… twenty-five miles. One point two to go. As long as she stayed on her feet, and didn’t trip or pass out or anything, she was going to make it! And not just make it, but beat her stretch goal time of four hours and ten minutes. Running nine minute, thirty second miles straight through would get her across the finish line halfway between Exeter and Dartmouth streets in 4 hours and 9 minutes. Even the weather was cooperating, with the temperature a runner-friendly 48F at the starting line in Hopkinton a very pleasant departure from the almost 90F endured by last year’s runners, the heat sapping their strength and materially slowing the pace.

She had a sudden image of herself six years ago as an eager, awkward freshman at Boston College. Arriving on campus as a young seventeen-year-old, she hadn’t been able to walk a mile without taking a break. Smart enough to skip a year in elementary school, she had always been perennially insecure (sometimes a lot) about always being the youngest in her grade. It had made her shy, which, when combined with a natural disinterest in spending time at immature, boozy high-school parties, left her home alone many nights, eating more than she should as she watched TV and wrote long, florid entries in her diary.

So she arrived at BC not just out of shape, but legitimately overweight. The idea that she might someday run the Boston Marathon had been even more ridiculous than her unexpressed fantasy that Chad Martin, the captain of the football team at Lincoln-Sudbury High School, would show up at her house unannounced and sweep her off to prom.

Amanda snatched a cup from a forest of Middle School arms proffering them to the runners. A girl squealed with delight to have hers selected, making Amanda smile as she carried on, steady as a metronome, though finding it harder and harder to stay on Pace. The closer she came to the finish line, the hotter the fire burned in her chest and the faster her legs wanted to pump but she tamped the flames down and forced her legs to comply. Pace was everything. If you stuck by your Pace, fed it with patience and persistence, believed in it, then Pace always paid you back with success.

As her legs ate up the pavement in regular, efficient strides, her mind wandered back to that first time she had screwed up the courage to go to the gym. Nervous, embarrassed, excited and afraid all at the same time, she wasn’t even sure she had purchased the right kind of outfit to wear. Too ashamed to ask for help at Dick’s Sporting Goods, she just grabbed stuff she thought looked sporty but comfortable. None of the other gym patrons gave her a second look, however, thus raising the faint hope that perhaps she could get through this first workout invisible and anonymous. She walked with false confidence up to a row of large contraptions that were something like a weird cross between a treadmill and a StairMaster. She stopped short, suddenly unsure how they worked, what they were actually for, or even how to get on one. She cursed herself for letting her bravado outpace her caution.

“It’s called an elliptical,” said a gravely, older male voice over her right shoulder. Horrified, Amanda realized she must have been standing frozen long enough to be noticed. “They’re a little tricky to use at first, but they’re great if you’ve got dodgy old knees like mine.”

Face flushed with embarrassment, Amanda turned to see a short man in perhaps his mid-60s with a handsome, friendly face, new to wrinkles and with soft brown eyes. For some reason his deep, weathered voice had suggested a burlier frame.

The stranger raised his left knee a few inches and patted it ruefully. “No more meniscus means no more pounding the streets.”

“You don’t look old enough to have bad knees,” came tumbling out of her mouth as she tried to regain her composure.

“It’s not the years, it’s the miles,” he said with mock gravity. Then, politely ignoring her continuing embarrassment, stepped carefully around her to stand next to the machine (the elliptical)in front of her. He tapped the screen and it came to life with numbers and pictures and words. He inclined his head to indicate she should climb on. She gingerly put first her right foot — then her left — onto the wide flat peddle / step things, standing awkwardly as they marginally swayed forwards and backwards.

“These screens are overly complicated,” he said, “so if I were a beginner, I would just select, ‘Manual’,” and here he pressed a button at the bottom of the screen, “and then you get to choose how long and how hard you want the workout to be, here and… here. Bigger numbers mean more resistance from the machine which means more work for you.” He looked her in the eyes. “Make sense?”

Amanda nodded. He nodded back, picked his gym bag up from behind her elliptical – it was her elliptical now – and said, “You can make your legs move the steps forwards or backwards, it works either way. Most people spend most of their time going forwards, but you do whatever you want. It’s your workout.” And with a small salute, he was off, striding deeper into the gym.

Looking back, especially from the vantage point of 25.5 miles into the Boston Marathon, still on Pace if not slightly ahead, she once again sent silent gratitude to that helpful stranger for recognizing her need for support — but not for pity — and for treating her like an equal and not some clueless gym newbie which is exactly what she had been. Thanks to his small, random act of kindness, her fear of going to the gym vanished and was replaced by the first tightly burning spark of self confidence.

She came back later that first week and twice more the week after that. Then soon, three and sometimes four times a week. And now here she was turning left from Hereford onto Boylston Street and the Finish Line(!) was a mere three and a half blocks ahead. She could easily make out the iconic finish line arch and she imagined that her friendly but nameless gym-elf would be standing up there, watching her finish and rubbing his knee with a rueful grin, a little jealous he couldn’t run the race himself anymore but happy she had. She couldn’t help scanning the crowds for his face, which of course wasn’t there. Nonetheless, she was blown away by how many people — really, so many people! — were here to cheer the amateur runners across the line, almost two hours after the winners had coasted home.

Despite having inherited her father’s natural skepticism, Amanda now found herself moved to actual tears that started to spill from the corners of her eyes by this incredibly generous outpouring of love and support and encouragement from all these people she didn’t know and would never meet, and who seemed to want nothing more than for her to finish this race, this crazy-difficult, painful, entirely unnecessary 26.2 mile test of character. She told herself it was stupid, that it was probably just her total and utter exhaustion making her cry, but her heart said otherwise. These were tears of happy, humble gratitude for the kindness of others, especially strangers who were nice to you in the gym, not because they felt sorry for you or wanted to get in your pants. Some people simply wanted to help you be a better you, which may be how they became better them.

She was just two blocks away now.

Mom and Dad are going to be so proud, she thought with a joy so intense she almost stumbled.

Then came the loudest noise Amanda had ever heard, a crazy sensation of flying, and pain sharp enough to cut time, which it mercifully did.

She was unconscious before she hit the pavement.