Free The Subatomic Kid by George Earl Parker Page A

with maple trees, a fact the birds found extremely convenient because the trees provided them with ample perch room from which to conduct their operatic warbling.
    This morning the human accompaniment was the usual—the paperboy, the mailman, and the odd early morning riser off to play golf. But when a black truck appeared and parked across the road from number 414, the chorus hesitated momentarily, as if factoring in this strange new instrument.
    Outwardly, the truck displayed its reason for being as: SID’S PLUMBING. But inwardly it was a different story entirely; the truck was actually full of video equipment, and out of a tiny hole in the D of SID’S name poked a tiny camera lens.
    Inside the truck Hunter sat at a console manipulating a joystick that moved the camera around. He focused it on the door of number 414 and leaned back in his chair, admiring his handiwork on one of the many TV monitors that lined the wall above him.
    The stakeout was his stock in trade; he was an aficionado of the practice. Long ago he had learned that a really successful stakeout could not be accomplished sitting in the front seat of a car drinking coffee and eating donuts for days on end. The downside was obvious; you could be seen, and the longer you sat there the more obvious you became, until you stuck out like a sore thumb.
    This stakeout, on the other hand, was his carefully designed masterpiece. There were video cameras to record all the action so that nothing was missed even if he dozed off. There was a freezer full of TV dinners, a microwave, and even a toilet, so he never had to leave the truck.
    The door opened and Steve entered from the driver’s cab wearing a false mustache. “I don’t see why I have to wear a disguise, Mr. Hunter. Nobody around here even knows me!”
    Hunter turned to him and smiled. “That’s true, and that’s the way it will stay, because if anybody ever asks any questions, you will just be the guy with the mustache from SID’S PLUMBING. Now make some coffee, we may be here for a while.”
    Hunter sat back in his chair and opened the newspaper; he’d forgotten more about the spy game than Steve would probably ever learn. Of course it was his duty to pass on the knowledge he’d gained, but the youngsters of today just didn’t have the juice he’d had when he started out.
    He blamed it on a lot of things: the educational system, the divorce rate, the idiotic television programs, and the constant bombardment of advertising. They all contributed to the lackadaisical manner of today’s youth.
    But this boy—this John Smith—if he truly was capable of doing what Doctor Leitz had hinted at, could turn the art of espionage on its head. Perhaps with his guidance the boy would become the best there ever was; who knew?
    He gazed at the paper: more trouble in the Middle East, more trouble in the Far East, more trouble at home. Opportunity is everywhere , he thought.
    ***
    John had been coaxed into consciousness somewhere in the second movement of the bird’s sunrise symphony. It was the moment the birds stopped singing that had awoken him, and when he heard a truck stop outside, he leapt out of bed.
    He watched the driver park, and apart from his mustache, he looked vaguely familiar. In a blinding moment of recollection he realized who it was. It was the limo driver, the one with the gun. He wondered what he was doing working for a plumbing company on the weekends, and then it hit him like a sledgehammer; they weren’t plumbers, they were watching him. That was the reason they had chased after him when he was the fly; it wasn’t that he was a pest, it was because they suspected he had inherited certain abilities after the ray gun had blown him through that hole, and they wanted to check him out.
    This unexpected development was going to make things very difficult, because he had a date today, and he didn’t want anything to interfere with it. After all, it was his first official date, and if anything