The Frontrunner

By Brad Fawley

Russ Clayton is a young man who keeps losing the important people in his life. Each time someone disappears, he finds himself left adrift. The Universe stacked against him. He only finds peace running alone on the roads of his small town in Kansas. Russ finally believes that everyone in his life is gone. Feeling abandoned, reckless, and liberated, he gives himself up wholly to the running by setting an impossible goal. But, he needs help. Long ago, Brad Coy was the fastest marathoner on the planet, but a man who also lost everything he valued to a cheating Russian runner named Yuri Grimlov. Finding a kinship, Coy and Russ team together, retreat to the desert, and undertake a quest to shatter the brain' s protective hold on the body that prevents us from reaching our physical limits of speed and endurance. On the other side of the world, Grimlov has been charged with restoring Russia' s tarnished reputation for doping its distance runners. He takes two young twin boys from their family and subjects them to his special mixture of psychological manipulation, doping, and scientific training. The boys, however, come to him already strongly shaped by their fraternal rivalries leavened with a heavy dose of their mother' s demanding ethics and branded by their father' s superstitions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Green Writers Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798990480100

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Praise for

the frontrunner

"The Frontrunner is an intense look at the beauty and power of distance running and racing. What are we capable of? Brad Fawley explores this quintessential question we all wonder about."

—Bill Rodgers, Olympian, and former American

record holder in the marathon; four-time winner

of Boston and New York City marathons

"Even if you’ve never laced up a pair of running shoes, you’ll fall in love with The Frontrunner—a modern day Breaking Away. Fawley’s startling first novel immediately gets you behind his underdog hero, Russ Clayton. Alone, with everything stacked against him, he chases an impossible dream, only to find the elixir he seeks has been right before his eyes all along. Like the best stories, it is a celebration of human resilience, honor, sacrifice, and triumph over loss."

—Hawk Ostby, writer of the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Children of Men, the Marvel movie Iron Man, Cowboys & Aliens, and the hit television series, The Expanse

A wonderful, touching, twisting novel about running and so much more. It captures beautifully what it means to move quickly through space and what it means to truly train. I couldn’t put it down.

—Nicholas Thompson, CEO The Atlantic,

American age-group record holder in the 50k

A dramatic coming-of-age story with compelling racing scenes. Fawley’s novel follows the journey of a young athlete who’s pursuing his dreams, despite all odds. . . . Fawley delivers a novel that effectively develops serious themes of passion, privilege, and the importance of family and community. What stands out most, however, is the pacing of the energetic racing scenes, which are interspersed among quiet moments of loss experienced by characters on either side of the finish line. Readers will be invested in the characters’ emotional journeys, regardless of their personal interest in the sport. The novel also avoids common tropes that often bedevil other works of sports fiction.

—Kirkus Reviews

"The Frontrunner features a big cast of eccentric characters, and a hero who is chasing the impossible Olympic ‘quad’—the 1500 meters, the 5000 meters, the 10,000 meters, and the marathon. Improbable at times but heart-thumping all the while, the story never falters in its searing pace. Brad Fawley is as skilled at weaving a complex, compelling plot as he is at understanding the physical and psychological depths of a great runner’s training. The Frontrunner is impossible to put down, and intriguing to the last page."

—Amby Burfoot, winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, author of Run Forever and other books

Within the first 40 pages, I was hooked. Doug, explaining to Chuck and Russ what it takes to race well, puts into words what many know/feel, but can’t verbalize. Brad nails it!

—Mike Dunlap, former professional with the Brooks

running team, two-time U.S. Olympic Team marathon trials qualifier, and co-host of the Beards and Dun Podcast

"Brad Fawley’s first novel aims high. A well-crafted realistic story of overcoming loss through running morphs into the ultimate Olympic golden fantasy. Epic training, reclusive coach, cheating Russians, miraculous victories, sexy high jumper, even a fan-zone ghost, this is Once a Runner on steroids."

—Roger Robinson, award-winning author,

Boston & New York masters record-breaker

"Distance running is not only about the course and the competition but also the battle between mind and heart. In The Frontrunner, Brad Fawley captures the pain of personal loss and the struggle to resurrect a dream, finding renewal and an unlikely ally in the New Mexico desert. An immersive and memorable debut novel that brings new energy to the underdog sports narrative."

—Edmond Stevens, writer of The Fish that Saved

Pittsburgh, Promised Land, and Skating to New York

"A book that rivals the cult classic Once a Runner, Fawley captures everything runners face—from the challenges of training and racing at all levels to life and love. . . . Brad’s writing cannot be beaten."

—Larry Coy, Six-Time All-American Distance Runner

THE

FRONTRUNNER

a novel

Brad Fawley

green writers press |

Brattleboro, Vermont

Copyright © 2024 by Brad Fawley

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews.

The Frontrunner is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, businesses, companies, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Green Writers Press is a Vermont-based publisher whose mission is to spread a message of hope and renewal through the words and images we publish. Throughout we will adhere to our commitment to preserving and protecting the natural resources of the earth. To that end, a percentage of our proceeds will be donated to environmental and social-activist groups. Green Writers Press gratefully acknowledges support from individual donors, friends, and readers to help support the environment and our publishing initiative.

Giving Voice to Writers & Artists Who Will Make the World a Better Place

Green Writers Press | Brattleboro, Vermont

www.greenwriterspress.com

isbn: 979-8-9876631-6-5

cover image:

BrilliantEye/istockphoto via Getty Images

For Anne

This book it chalketh out before thine eyes

The man that seeks the everlasting prize;

It shews you whence he comes, whither he goes;

What he leaves undone, also what he does;

It also shews you how he runs and runs,

Till he unto the gate of glory comes.

—John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

(from The Author’s Apology for His Book)

Part I

SORTING THINGS OUT

Russ Clayton

stands, balanced on the edge of the very top of the quarry, the cold rock beneath his bare feet, long boned and white. His toes grip the sandstone. At least sixty feet below, the still water shines. A pool of obsidian. The half-moon and its penumbra of light floats in the center. A breeze rises up the quarry wall, warm and soft. Passes over his face. Ruffles his hair. A nightbird calls out but there is no response, only the murmur of the wind brushing leaves. A cloud passes. The moon’s reflection fades and then snaps back to sharp focus against the flat, dark water. Russ’s heart thuds. In his hands, with fingers spread wide, he holds a small boulder. The size of a bowling ball. He is afraid that its weight will tip him over the edge.

He lifts the rock up before him, chin, eyes, and chest high, as if in offering, and lets it roll off his fingertips. Holding only moonlight in his palms, he counts off the seconds as the rock falls through the black air, passing the carved face of the quarry wall in silence.

Earlier that day, on the gravel beach across the water, the other boys had placed their wrinkled dollar bills on the warm hood of Randy’s car and Becky had gathered them up and put them in her teal bucket hat, a stakeholder. Despite the urging of Jimmy and Stewie and the peering looks of the other girls from beneath their bangs, Russ had declined the challenge to climb the quarry face. Giving them only a shake of his head and a small smile, despite the name-calling that echoed back as the others found a place to grip the rock wall a few feet higher than the ledge from which the last boy had jumped, yelling. One by one, over and over, inching higher and higher, they had jumped, splashed down, and swam to the beach where Becky stood with the money crumpled in the bottom of her hat. Shaking off the water like dogs and sending the drops sparkling in the sun. Scrambling back up the cliff face.

Finally, Randy had climbed higher than any dared, and jumped, arms and legs splayed, spidered against the sky, falling at least forty feet, smacking the water hard. Him and his shout disappearing under the surface. Silence as the water closed and stilled. Flat and smooth as an iron sheet. The sun glaring down, its reflection a polished mirror searing their eyes. Yet, none could look away.

As the seconds ticked by and the time they marked evaporated, Russ couldn’t help but fill his lungs with the ragged deep breath he imagined Randy craved down there. Enveloped in a swarming cloud of translucent green bubbles, the fishy taste of the water mixed with the last of his air. Gravity gone and him tumbling, clawing out, unable to find the surface hidden somewhere inside the cold dark water.

Russ had exhaled when Randy broke through, shouting, before swimming back to shore. Emerging, as always, the dripping conqueror. His skin, oily and beaded. Black hair slicked back and his crooked grin of feigned modesty. The still-missing tooth from last year’s big game that the girls somehow found attractive. Amid the high fives and backslapping and whispers of the girls among each other, Becky had taken the money out of her hat and handed it to Randy. His hand still wet, he folded the damp bills, gave her a kiss, and tucked the money into the tiny front pocket of her white denim shorts.

After the others had left, with their windows rolled down, yelling and peeling out of the dusty area where they had parked, Stewie and Jimmy asked Russ why he hadn’t jumped. He said he didn’t know, and that was the truth because he hadn’t yet sorted out the answer for himself. It wasn’t fear, because, with no one watching, he had jumped higher than Randy many times before.

The rest of the day had passed, and that night back at home, as he lies in bed turning it all over in his mind, Russ finally knew. He saw that someday, Randy would take over the Ford dealership from his father and Becky would fill her bucket hat with a handful of his kids, and the others would all arrange themselves around them in the same order they did at the quarry, and as they did under the lights at the Homecoming game last fall. He knew that was how it would be, even as the years swept by. Instead of passing their class rings around, and despite growing middles and sagging breasts, they would swap wedding bands, each one trying to climb a little bit higher. But in the end, Russ figured, despite all that effort, they would all end up living and dying here in Athens, Kansas in much the same order as he had seen them today.

So, without more thought, Russ had gotten out of bed, pulled on his shoes and, under the moonlight, ran the four miles to the quarry.

When the rock finally hits the surface, it doesn’t so much splash as it is swallowed up with a deep resonance that echoes off the quarry walls. Concentric rings spread from the point of impact, disturb the moonshape and mark the center of the target below.

Without hesitation, Russ Clayton leaps into the sky.

I

n a

cavernous gymnasium somewhere near St. Petersburg, Russia, high in the bleachers, Maria watches the one hundred boys and girls standing at attention. A grid. Ten by ten. Arranged by height order. The smallest in front. It is dead quiet. The air, sterile. Rarefied. Hypobaric. She resists making a scene by gasping for more, for there is not a sound, even from the other parents huddled in the bleachers, also watching. Their children in identical white athletic shorts, shirts, and shoes. Eyes forward. Hands to the side. Chins and chests up. Overhead, dozens of red and white hammer and sickle flags hang from the rafters and oversee the proceedings. As if those in power have today, this special day, deigned to bless and anoint these parents and children with hope.

The doors open with a crash that reverberates through the gymnasium. Maria jumps in her seat. The parents swing their heads as one, but not their children. They know better. A dozen men and women in white laboratory coats enter. Their shoes squeak across the spotless, waxed floor. Behind them, the doors finally swing closed with a thunk and a snap that continues to echo as they approach the assembled children. A girl’s knees give out. She collapses, falling out of the line. A heap of limbs, partly draped across the feet of the girl next to her who does not look down or move. A voice in the bleachers cries out but then is muffled. Cameras in the rafters whirr. The doors crash open again and two men in white jumpsuits roll in a gurney, the wheels flapping like nervous hands clapping. They lift the girl by her armpits and knees, slack swayed, and arrange her on the sheets. A long-stemmed lily, broken. A man and a woman gather their dark coats and scurry to leave the bleachers, and clatter along after the hospital bed.

Once the doors close, the men and women in lab coats stalk up and down the rows, peering over the images displayed on their computer tablets. Scanning retinas with software. Mumbling to each other. A woman stops before a small boy and, checking off his name, looks at him. You may go. His lower lip trembles.

Now?

Yes.

One by one, children are asked to leave. Some cry, disbelieving, for these assembled children have always been those first chosen. Never have they failed. At anything. Still, some smile. Bravery? Or clinging with unwavering confidence in the belief that a mistake has been made. A glitch in the software. A number transposed. But Maria knows that their parents have no such illusions, for they have always anticipated such a moment would finally come, when their child would fall from the balance beam, make too large a splash on entry, tumble to the ice, miss the final gate. As the children leave, they are followed by their parents who, gripping their hats and handbags of hope, shuffle from the bleachers and away into the white winter.

Soon, a handful remain, and it is quiet again.

Maria’s sixteen-year-old sons, Mishka and Sergei Pushkin—tall, skinny, blond, and blue-eyed twins—are not asked to leave. They are identical except for the bright port-wine-colored oval birthmark high on Mishka’s left cheek. With a wave, a man summons the boys’ parents to join them on the floor of the gymnasium. Maria and Vasha Pushkin look at each other and then down at the boys.

Maria is short. Rotund. Today, she selected the special pink lipstick she reserves for funerals, christenings, and birthdays. When the man waves at her, she wrinkles her brow. She clutches her boiled wool handbag and stands, still encased in her heavy coat. Maria looks up at her husband Vasha. He is looking at their boys.

Like them, Vasha is blond, blue-eyed, tall, thin. His birthmark is the same color as Mishka’s but is on his neck, just to the left of his Adam’s apple, and it looks remarkably like a map of Madagascar. It moves when he swallows. Vasha wears his only suit. It is plain grey and sags, too large, from his bony shoulders. He bought it to wear at their wedding when he was a larger young man, not yet worn down. The ice he tracked in has melted and forms a puddle around the soles of his workingman’s boots, and he has folded his heavy coat over his left arm. Maria winces when she sees how he holds his father’s lucky charcoal-grey fedora with such reverence. The silk band, once black, has faded to violet and it has been a long time since the fedora has produced any fortune. Did it ever? At least for us? Who knows, perhaps today the hat will pay off. Perhaps he was smart to bring the hat.

Their feet echo on the wooden steps as they work their way down the bleachers, leaving the others behind to wonder at the Pushkins’ good fortune. They hesitate, then step onto the gymnasium floor and walk towards the man who beckoned them. This is a place they have never been, out of the bleachers and spotlighted on the floor. The ceiling and its flags soar above, the expanse vast and smooth. A place reserved for athletes and dignitaries. A place Maria will look back on with dread.

Yuri Grimlov notices the wet, muddy tracks the Pushkins leave behind on his otherwise spotless floor, then looks up and gives them a cramped smile that reveals a mouthful of uneven teeth and several golden caps. Grimlov is small, trim, bald, in his mid-60’s, in a pair of red Nike trainers and a fresh white Adidas tracksuit with three red stripes running down the arms and legs. A red hammer and sickle are embroidered above his left breast. Grimlov’s skin is dry and his cheeks are ruddy, as if someone has scrubbed them too hard with a washcloth. He folds his hands behind his back and tilts forwards slightly, in greeting.

Comrades. Today, Mother Russia has adopted your sons. Tests indicate great potential. You can be proud. I personally will oversee their development. Never worry.

Vasha Pushkin would like to ask Grimlov to repeat what he said, for he is so overwhelmed, he forgot to listen. Instead, he rotates the brim of his father’s soft hat with his fingertips and turns his head to look back towards the bleachers. Longing to push time back, at first he sees his small sons sitting by the fire, building a castle of cork and cardboard. But then he notices the muddy tracks he left behind, a direct path from this place all the way back to their humble village and its squawking chickens and snuffling pigs. He looks down to his boots and then up to Maria.

His Maria. He watches her wrinkle her brow as she studies Grimlov. The look is familiar. He has seen it many times when he has had a touch too much vodka, wakes from a nap before the fire, or returns alone from a long walk in his beloved countryside. Vasha does not know this man, Grimlov, but in this moment finds enough commonality between them to grant him a bit of compassion.

When Maria does not relent, Grimlov looks away, busying himself with the clipboard in his hands from which he removes a pen and makes marks on a paper. Vasha smiles. He knows this feeling. Only after Grimlov looks away does Maria turn and open her arms to her boys.

Come.

Vasha is disappointed when the boys first look to Grimlov for permission instead of him. Grimlov nods. They rush to their mother and Vasha feels a bit better. They are a head taller than her, yet, with both arms she pulls them into her, one on each side. He knows that through the rank wet lanolin of her coat, they are breathing in her familiar smells of lavender soap and black tea tinged with wood smoke. His eyes water.

Grimlov is second-guessing his decision about these boys. Yes, the tests showed potential. Their numbers exceed any he has previously seen, even his own. But, this mother? He can handle the father, but what hold does she have on these boys? Grimlov knows mothers like this. His own was not much different, and even though she is long dead, a victim of a purge, his distaste for women like this still sours his mouth. All righteous. All knowing. Too hard. That said, perhaps that is a good upbringing for a distance runner. After all, look at what he accomplished. But, still, women like this? Grimlov prefers women who are more pliable, softer, more languid. Not like his mother or this Maria Pushkin with mud on the soles of her cheap shoes tromping across his gymnasium and staring at him with insolence. Well, he thinks, it’s not like I have to date her. Or even socialize. It’s the boys that count and, hopefully, she imbued them with some of that dirt she brought in from the country.

Still, he worries. Usually the choices are easier. Normally it’s all about the numbers. But this time, Grimlov knows he must select well. The Federation has made it clear. They have left it up to him to repair the wounded reputation of the Russian program, despite being the ones responsible for its decline. After all, they were the ones who set him and his teammates up with that chemist so long ago. What was his name? A sniveling man who insisted on being called Professor. He always stunk of garlic and whiskey. At least now, Grimlov’s athletes do not need to be stuck with needles. A pill or two taken with meals is all that is needed. But why is it fair that I of all people have been saddled with convincing the world that Russia does not dope its distance runners? And what if I fail? What then? Will I lose my Moscow apartment overlooking Staraya Square and my dacha in the birch forest just outside the city? My privileges to the finest restaurants and bars? My access to the special women, exotics imported from the Middle East? Invitations to special events and the ballet? My international travel visa negated? My Olympic medals rescinded? Or worse. Could I be made to disappear altogether? Branded an embarrassment? Perhaps a Gulag?

No, he has to get this right and, of course, the answer is clear. He has a plan. A good solid plan. The first step is picking the right boys, and these twins are perfect. He’s getting two sets of genes for the price of one, and let the better boy win in the end.

He catches Maria looking over the boys’ blond heads, locking eyes with him. Grimlov feels small.

Maria releases him and speaks. Sergei, Mishka—I am your Mother. Then, Maria holds the two boys away from her at arm’s length. "Now, listen to me."

This time, only Sergei seeks and receives a quick nod of approval from Grimlov. But Grimlov’s satisfaction in seeing the boy bend to him is short-lived, for when he looks back at the woman her eyes are no longer on her boys, but instead are focused on his hands. Looking deep. A palmist, knowing his past. Reading his future. He hides them behind his back, the past gripping the future. White-knuckled.

Then she says, A time will come when you will be tested. All men and women face such a time.

Vasha remembers his test. Some might guess it was the time his position was overrun by Afghani rebels as he cowered alone, shot in the shoulder and hiding under a mound of food waste and plastic until they left sometime in the night. The next morning, he fired wildly at the crows picking at what was left of his friend’s bodies. The smell of burning rubber and flesh. He and the others fought like demons to live. But there were too many and, unlike Vasha, the rebels believed that dying was a direct path to their God.

As bad as it was, that was not his test. Vasha’s test came in the aftermath. Something of which he has never spoken to anyone, except Maria. It wasn’t the rebels after all. It was his own country. Two months in isolation in a concrete cell with no window and a bucket for his waste. Tin plates of watery cabbage slid across the floor. The lights dimming as power was diverted, and the screams echoed from down the corridor. The endless blare of martial music blasting into his cell. Dragged out for interrogation. And the man sitting across the table from him, who waved his cigarette to the guard and asked that Vasha’s cuffs be removed. He offered a smoke, and once it was lit, asked, The mark. There on your face. A wound?

No. A birthmark.

Ah. The man blew out smoke and pointed with his cigarette. You know, it looks like a map of Madagascar.

After that, the guards called him Madagascar. He had never felt shame for his mark. He’d rarely thought about it. But later, sitting in his cell, all he could think of was the map on his neck. He polished the back of his tin plate with the sleeve of his prison uniform, studied the mark and thought of his son, Mishka, whom he was responsible for branding just as surely as if he were a steer.

Vasha had held fast, clinging to the truth as he knew it, until he saw the tray of shining instruments arranged in rows. They never had to touch him, never attached the alligator clamps, never picked up the surgical saw. The anticipation was enough, and he was unable, unwilling, and unprepared in every way to reconcile his situation with reality. His brain screamed, so he gave them everything they wanted.

By the time they finally pulled him from the cell and allowed him to testify before the court martial panel, he knew exactly what to say. A panel composed of men like this man Grimlov, with their smirking, golden-capped teeth. Men who had never spent a day in the field and questioned his honor and wanted only one thing—to break him.

The hearing began with the magistrate in the middle leaning forward and indicating that Vasha should move closer to the bench. The magistrate studied him and then looked to the other two judges at his sides and said, Perhaps we should sentence him to a term in Madagascar. They all laughed. And then they let him go home.

Vasha hears Maria’s voice drifting in on his thoughts, like waves lapping against a breakwater. But he is not home. No, he is here in this soulless place. His fate and the fate of his sons once again placed in the hands of men he does not understand.

Maria looks up at Vasha. She remembers the day he fell to his knees and wept into the lap of her cotton dress. He shared his story with her. But no one else before. Or since. Especially the boys. She did not weep with him, but instead, when his shoulders stopped heaving, she demanded to know. Oh my poor Vasha. Why? Why do you and all fathers withhold the truth? Don’t you know? Your sons will love you no matter what you say, or did. Even more if you’re honest, as you have been with me. Can’t you see that?

Yet still, despite her entreaties, Vasha withheld. He concealed. He hid. Ashamed. The price was as plain as day to her. And right before her, he betrayed his sons’ love by not honoring it with truth, and in the course of it all, she could not help but wonder what else he had concealed from her over these many years. In the end, she forgave him by concluding that Vasha was like all other men she has known. Every father is afraid to reveal their weaknesses to their sons, when the sons could share their pain and use it. Be better for it. Then, pass their strength on to their sons, again and again, through the generations. Cowardice? Or fear of being found out to be less than the man they have play-acted at being? Even on his deathbed, when there was nothing left to protect but a false legacy, she watched her own father bury the rich lessons that would surely have helped his sons, and her.

So Maria understands why Vasha shuffles silent before this man, placing his faith on the luck of a hat. Maria wonders which son will receive the hat when Vasha feels it is time to pass it on. Perhaps he never will, hoping for a final miracle of luck to the very end, perhaps to even bring him back from the edge of death. But it won’t, and instead, she knows it will likely be found, sitting alone, dusty on the wooden shelf above his closet. Perhaps the boys will cut it in half, and each take a piece home with them, to be divided again and again by generations of sons and grandsons until the luck left in whatever small bits remain is not worth fussing with.

But Maria’s task today is not to muse about her husband and his stupid hat. There will be time for that later, when they return to their empty home. Instead, right now on the floor of this gymnasium and in front of this man Grimlov, she needs to find the proper words to launch her sons into the world, for she understands that they will not be returning home for a very long time. She panics, thinking this might be her last chance to make a difference. Despite doing her best to imprint them with the lessons she desperately wants them to learn, she feels she has not done enough. This is nothing new. She never feels she has done enough. No matter whether it is cleaning the sink, soothing hurt feelings, or teaching lessons of life.

Maria takes a deep breath and turns to the boys. A time will come when you are tested. It will be hard. Painful. You will feel all is lost and can never recover. Everything in you will say, ‘give in, give up.’ You will fear the future and what it will bring. But, when that time comes, I ask only one thing. That you will not hesitate to protect the other just as though he were you, no matter the consequences. As if you are one. She squeezes them harder. Remember, you came from me as one. You are one.

They turn to their mother, and she searches each boy’s eyes. She sees Sergei’s glance flicker towards Grimlov. Sergei is his father’s son. Without even trying, or wanting to, Vasha has taught Sergei the lesson he learned so well from his own father. The lesson to fear men like Grimlov. Maria is gentle as she reaches for Sergei’s chin and turns him to her. She sees he is shamed by his weakness, and at being caught displaying it, and as mothers are able to do, she forgives him. Sergei nods to his mother, although she knows that he has not listened or, if he listened, he has not heard her. Her voice is already clouded by Grimlov. She can only hope he will someday honor himself, and her.

As sure as she is that Sergei has not heard her, she is certain that Mishka has taken in every word. Even if nothing had come from her lips, he would have heard. Perhaps it is a matter of genetics. He surely has always been his mother’s son, from the moment he emerged from her womb, into the light, squirming, blinking, crying for air on the bloody sheet next to his pensive brother. He always understood. She does not even need to ask him.

Mishka nods.

Satisfied, Maria says, Now face each other and listen.

Do you remember all the clear, dark nights when we stood together in the snow, looking for stars? I showed you how to find Polaris. Fixed. The one star immovable in the night sky, a single point in the blackness with all the other stars revolving around it, worshiping it, paying homage to it. Your guide home if lost.

Speaking as one, as expected, as always, they say, "Da, Mama."

"When the test comes, remember that your honor is your Pole Star. It will guide you. Not me. Not your father. Maria again locks onto Grimlov. Not your country."

She finishes, Without honor, you have nothing.

Grimlov steps forward to speak. Vasha flinches. But Maria is surprised by the change in Grimlov’s voice. Soft, as if his tongue were covered with felt. Sergei, Mishka . . . your mother is correct and wise.

Grimlov pauses and smiles at Maria. The lines on Maria’s forehead soften. Grimlov continues, "My own mother taught me the same lessons, and they have guided me long after her passing. First and foremost, without your honor, you have nothing. And, if I may, I would add this from my