Code of Honor полностью

Manado looked north from the island of Sulawesi, across the Celebes Sea toward the Philippines, less than three hundred miles away. The Manadonese — more correctly called Minahasan — people seemed stockier than other Indonesians Chavez had met. Handsome, he thought, primarily because they looked an awful lot like him, with almost Hispanic features and sometimes a little wave to their dark hair. Chavez found that most people didn’t give him a second glance — as long as he didn’t try to speak.

Chavez and Clark had split from the rest of the team as soon as they’d bought their entry visas and cleared Immigration. They now sat at a plastic table outside a Starbucks in the Megamall, a seafront shopping center downtown.

The rest of the team had taken two of the rental cars and were checking out the Suparman Games store in the center of Manado, leaving Ding and Clark to organize rooms at the Whiz Prime Hotel that was adjacent to the mall. With that done, Ding had invited Clark out for coffee, promising not to get bubble tea.

The mall had a cinema and plenty of high-end stores, if you cared about that kind of thing, which Chavez did not. More important, though, there was coffee. Sleep on the plane was always fitful, and jumping into work after endless hours on the Gulfstream had made coffee a necessity. The shop next to Starbucks sold snacks. Chavez bought fried banana fritters drizzled with palm sugar so he’d have something besides caffeine acid in his gut.

It was crowded for the midafternoon, mostly women, but like anywhere Chavez had ever been, there were a few roving packs of teenage boys, looking for something to do. Security kept them in line, and cleaners with brooms and long-handled dustpans scoured the floors for trash or spills. The place was sparkling clean but still worn and lived-in. It reminded Ding of his grandmother’s house in East L.A., whenever she thought someone important like the priest was coming to visit. It was as clean as a shabby thing could be.

Every other person in Manado seemed to have a cigarette in hand. Ding read somewhere that offering a cigarette was a polite way of greeting. The population’s affection for smoking coupled with the ceilings painted in blue-and-white cloud scenes gave the mall the feel of a Vegas casino.

Manado was a large city for the island, but its population of only half a million made it barely a glimmer compared to Jakarta’s blinding glare. The local dive shops and tourist operators liked to compare themselves to Bali. Chavez could see it. If he didn’t have to fly in and steal some piece of shit’s computer virus, he would have liked to bring Patsy here. Maybe. Sometimes traveling so much just made him want to sit at home on his own couch and drink a beer — a sore spot with his highly intelligent and adventurous wife. But then, of course she would crave adventure. She was John Clark’s daughter.

The people of Manado had a decidedly European bent, and, unlike much of the rest of Indonesia, they were predominately Christian, exemplifying their faith with a gleaming white statue called Yesus Kase Berkat that overlooked the city fifty meters above the ground on the southern hills. This “Blessing Jesus” leaned forward, arms open wide, robes flowing, appearing to march down from the mountains. Over those same mountains, behind the statue, and across the Gulf of Tomini, Islamist militants and Christians clashed in frequent violence. The look on Clark’s face said he’d rather be there.

Chavez took a bite of fried banana and looked directly at Clark, trying to make conversation. “Here’s sort of a funny thing. Did Patsy tell you that the neighbor kid is trying to talk JP into doing e-sports when they go to college?”

If there was one thing that could make Clark smile, it was his grandson. “Kid’s got his mother’s brain, getting into Stanford.”

“Can’t argue there,” Chavez said.

“And what the hell are e-sports, anyway?”

“Video games, I think,” Chavez groused. “I’m not a hundred percent clear. I guess it’s a big deal now. There are teams all over the country.”

“Is he doing it?”

“Don’t worry, your grandson’s not quitting baseball,” Chavez said. “I’ll tell you that right now.”

“That’s the trouble with kids,” Clark said, gazing pensively into his coffee as though he was speaking from personal experience. “They grow up and do what they want to do instead of what we want them to do.”

“E-sports,” Chavez scoffed, curling his lip like the word tasted bad. “Maybe the kids can grow some e-muscles and e-coordination to go along with it. Call it e-games, but come on… e-sports?”

Clark took a drink of coffee. “Who am I to judge? I never expected video games to make the jump from pizza joints to home computers.”

“Don’t forget phones.”

“Yeah,” Clark said, his interest in the subject exhausted. “Stanford,” he whispered to himself. “What a kid.”