Two weeks earlier.
Dudley sat in a little friendly looking café on a small table which was just big enough for him. He read a newspaper while drank a cup of coffee.
"Petropolis-Bomber strikes again. 15 police officers were killed after an explosion." He read the headline with a low voice. "After eight years of peace the
notorious so called 'Petropolis-Bomber' killed yesterday 15 police officers … Interesting" As Dudley wanted to turn the page over to the
sport section the newspaper was snatched from him. Two big gorillas stood there grinning.
"Mr. Swan?" asked one of them.
"Yes?" Dudley answered after he hesitated briefly. It was still hard for him to remember and to react on his cover name. He never wanted this cover name,
he actually wanted the name Clancy Jones but his clients said that would be to strange.
"We have to talk!" the other one said. Each of them grabbed a chair and sat down on Dudley´s table which began to wobble dangerously.
"Well, Mr. Swan we heard you snooped around a bit." He said friendly but with a threatening expression on his face to Dudley who
tried to prevent his coffee from spilling. "Our boss wants you to stop your investigations or however you call it. So please follow us outward.
So we can discuss this more detailed." Dudley began to smile.
"That is the funniest part of my job" he thought. He sipped at his cup of coffee, enjoyed the taste and the warmth of it and then began to speak.
"So you want me to follow you and then you beat me up somewhere as a warning? Well, okay. I´ll play your game. But to let you know that means that
I won't defend myself against you. Otherwise you two amateurs would have no chance. The when you´re finished I´ll wash the blood away from my face,
drink another cup of coffee and then I will find you and kill you.
I begin with you Garry" He addressed the gorilla on the left side of him. "So that the good Leopold here have a few more days with Sharon and his kids…
Their names were Carl and Tanja, weren´t they?" He looked asking to the gorilla on the right who just dropped his smile and started starring shocked at him.
"But I´m not sure about the best order. Should I first kill your wife and then you or… Well, I think I´ll decide this spontaneous. It will depend on
how much I want you to suffer. And, of course, I don´t want your kids grow up without a father and a mother so I maybe kill them too. Let´s see…
So, are you really tough enough to play this game?"
From the gorillas came no more sound. They just stood up and went out of the café. Dudley grinned complacently. "That was easy… I thought that they would at least say something or try to threaten me. Hehe, it´s true barking dogs never bite… even if the dogs are gorillas." Dudley´s bluff completely worked. Of course he would have never done this, even if he could but the thought of killing someone just to have revenge on somebody was repugnant to him. Except this person´s name was Jeffrey Sullivan.
Dudley finished his coffee. "So this job is now completely over." He leaned back in his chair and remembered the last three months. Much has happened.
He now had two jobs. The first one was his normal job as a T.U.F.F. agent, a relatively well paid job with his charming partner Kitty Katswell, his boss the chief and Keswick. The second one was his new job as a 'professional' hero with no payment and a really strange boss who calls himself 'the adviser'. This guy was really totally different from every being on the planet. "Like a monkey without any hair and shorter arms… weird" Dudley pictured the advisor and got a bit disgusted by this. But at least he was friendly and the job was really interesting.
He learned through this new unofficial job a lot of new cool stuff, especially because the adviser let him run through a terrible hard training. A training which the adviser hadn´t guided him through, no he had a little rat guy for that. A guy called Simon who taught Dudley everything he could in the very short time of three months. For example how to fight with things that are not even weapons like a spoon or how to lie right or how to infiltrate a building.
But it wasn´t enough time for Simon to teach Dudley everything he knew. "It seems like everyone who is in touch with the adviser has a second job in his 'real life'."
Dudley let his thoughts wander and just as he thought that he also could separate his 'real life' from his second job a voice startled him.
"A..a..agent Puppy? Is that you?" Dudley sat frozen on his chair as he heard Keswick´s voice behind him. "Uhm… no I´m Jason… Bourne". So much about 'how to lie right'.
"Come on really. My cover name is Jason Swan! Damn" thought Dudley, he could slap himself for this mistake.
"Oh so we´re in this m..m..movie?" Keswick walked around him and sat down on one of the empty chairs on which the gorillas sat a few minutes ago. "What was that D..D..Dudley?"
"I don´t know what you mean."
"I mean the those two t..t..thug you just chased away! Just by using words!"
"They were old friends." Lied Dudley.
"Oh, so you threaten your o..o..old friends to kill them and their families?" Keswick looked penetrating at Dudley.
"Boy, you got good ears." Dudley sighed "I think it´s useless to deny this?"
"Yeah, so w..w..where did you learned this amazing and also terrifying way of lying?"
"I learned it by an old rat who always said: 'Puppy, the best lies are that ones that aren´t lies'" Keswick looked a bit frightened at him. "Okay, and who sent these thugs to beat you up?"
"Franklin Edwards."
"That investigative journalist?"
"Yes, as he investigated he stumbled over something." Dudley looked around and lowered his voice "He found out that the Chinese government has recently developed a new kind of highly destructive weapon. Even our spies hadn´t discovered what he found out!"
"B..b..but how?"
"That´s a really good question. But I think he done some really bad things to get these information. He maybe also tortured people because you can´t bribe these Chinese loyalists." Made Dudley clear.
"And what was your part in this story?"
"My, let´s call them clients, wanted me to let everything what Edwards collected disappear."
"But Dudley!" Exclaimed Keswick shocked.
"Please, quiet!" The people around them had turned to them and stared.
"Oh, I f..f..forgot." Keswick lowered his voice again. "But the g..g..government needs to know this! We have to p..p..prepare ourselves against this threat."
"And then what? You know what the government mostly does. They will attack China because of this. The relations between us and them are tensed.
So tensed that I would call them bad! If Edwards had published this it would lead us directly to the third world war! And this time I´m not sure if we would be
on the winning side… or if anybody would be left who could call himself a winner."
Keswick didn´t answer on that because he knew that what Dudley said was true.
"Sometimes the little things have a great impact." Dudley added.
"Okay Dudley, but who are those c..c..clients?"
"I´m not allowed to talk about that." They stopped speaking and just stared at each other for a while. Keswick stared because he wanted to know who these clients were and Dudley stared because he wanted to say that he won´t tell anything. Both kept doing this until Dudley stood up and laid twenty Dollars on the table.
"Keswick. I beg you not to tell anyone about my second 'job'." Said Dudley but without any pleading in his voice.
"Hey, wait. You probably saved the w..w..world. Why shouldn´t I tell that to everyone?"
"It´s important that I´m able to act unnoticed. And also it´s important that exactly this issue not came out."
"Okay, that´s r…r…right of course… I´ll do you that favor. But you o..o..owe me one!"
Keswick had of course recognized that Dudley was easily susceptible for blackmail in this moment and used his chance cold-blooded.
"Whatever you want, Keswick."
"I´ll come b..b..back to that later" Keswick started to laugh evilly while Dudley left the café a bit terrified.