America 1982-Chapter 49 - 8: Asymmetrical Trade
Ottelia took several deep breaths, and slowly walked toward the balcony on the second floor of the government building, where Tommy Hawk was using a handheld video camera to record footage as material.
Tommy Hawk was completely unaware of Ottelia’s approach, as he was wholeheartedly capturing the figure of a man standing not far away on the street corner, who was the commander of the most powerful armed forces in the country.
He was Colin-John, the Chief of the National Police, who oversaw the country’s 17 police stations and shared the same name as Tommy’s father.
An elite black officer who had served in the British army and trained at Scotland Yard, he had won several medals and was now standing in front of the police station, swaying to the strong rhythm pumping through headphones from Dennis’s Walkman, appearing to be having a seizure to those who couldn’t hear the music.
It was hard to imagine that the security of this country was in the hands of such a man, who in front of Tommy seemed to be trying to shake off all his body fat.
Meanwhile, Dennis stood on the second-floor balcony of the National Police headquarters, surrounded by several black officers in gray-blue police uniforms, despite being casually dressed himself; it seemed as though they were seeking his instructions for their next tasks.
Clearly, Dennis was trying out the role of acting police chief, a priority experience for their upcoming government simulation activity at the summer camp, and by the look on his face, he was quite interested in this affair.
Because Tommy heard one of the officers report to Dennis that a sugarcane field in St. George Parish had been destroyed and the local police station hoped that Dennis could bring others from the police force to assist on the scene and capture the culprits—no less than four wild boars which had already destroyed many sugarcane fields, with the local station lacking in manpower and equipment.
Dennis thought it best not to sacrifice needlessly, not to let oneself get hurt, and to fight the enemy by making good use of one’s advantages.
So after careful consideration, his proposal for action was to find out where the US Embassy was, then prepare to take his men with gongs and drums to drive the wild boars to the Embassy, trapping the boars inside, enabling the Embassy to request the deployment of battle-hardened US Marines to assist with the task of physically capturing the boars.
The reason for physically capturing the wild boars was that Dennis thought that after capturing the boars alive, they could conveniently open a zoo; perhaps the marines who came from afar could visit the local zoo to relax after catching the boars, thus earning some US dollars from them and increasing the country’s income.
The officers, upon hearing his words, subconsciously wiped their faces hard, and two couldn’t help but turn to look towards the direction of the government building, seemingly wondering where their governor and prime minister had found such a young American leader? Had he accidentally fallen into the sea and soaked his brain, or had a clownfish swum into his brain through his ear, making this youngster look not so much a leader as a clown?
Their subordinate was at that moment informing Dennis that there was no US Embassy here; the several Caribbean nations shared one US Embassy for the entire Caribbean region, headquartered in Barbados, with only a liaison office in Kingston that was part of the US Embassy for the Caribbean region, and that was also located inside the government building. If they chased the wild boars to the diplomatic office, half the town might be destroyed by the boars first.
After hearing Dennis’s action plan and comparing it with the alternative, Tommy thought that the security of the country would be better off in the hands of the dancing Colin, the Chief, since at least Colin only had seizure-like movements in response to music, while Dennis’s brain seemed to be seizing all the time.
"Tommy?" Ottelia’s voice sounded somewhat uneasy.
"Miss Farrell, what’s the matter?" Tommy Hawk turned toward Ottelia at the sound of her voice.
The beautiful teacher in front of him wore an apologetic expression; her hands were behind her back, and from her posture, it was clear she felt she had done something she thought might reflect poorly on herself.
Ottelia looked at Tommy Hawk, "Here’s the thing, my father learned about my recent work and kindly suggested that in addition to submitting your application to Lincoln High School, we could prepare and submit a second copy somewhere else. I thought it was good advice, so I helped you submit the second application without getting your consent first."
"Besides submitting it to Lincoln High School, I’m not really sure where else it needs to go," Tommy Hawk said, shrugging somewhat confusedly. "As a school club, if there are other issues that need approval, the school’s administrative department can also step in to handle them for us."
"That’s true, but both you and I know that Lincoln High School doesn’t have much faith in the activity you initiated, so they haven’t made further applications. They only gave us the minimal funding of a thousand dollars to establish the school club, which is... I mean, considering this is an international activity, they obviously know this money isn’t enough, but they’re unwilling to support it, showing that they don’t have much confidence in you, so... that’s why I previously submitted another application to the Rhode Island Department of Public Education in the hope of gaining a little extra support if our funds run out," Ottelia explained the actions she had taken.
Hearing Ottelia’s words, Tommy Hawk was utterly baffled.
