PEN GUN
Outwardly, the pen gun appears to be an innocent—though finely crafted—writing instrument (you can actually write with it if the nature of the device is ever called into question). Inwardly, however, the pen gun contains a single .22 caliber, subsonic, hollow-point cartridge (I call it the Mont Blam) which is fired by depressing the pocket clip twice in rapid succession.37
I carry one, but I don’t really consider it practical: If I want to shoot somebody, I use my service weapon. And if I have to enter a location where I will be searched for weapons, odds are they’re not going to let me keep this bulky bastard, because everybody knows about pen guns.
I have used it to blow a broken cork out of a bottle of ‘38 Bâtard-Montrachet, however. Actually, that’s inaccurate: the cork was blown into the bottle of Bâtard-Montrachet, along with a bunch of glass and a tiny bit of my fingertip. But, even though it was a chardonnay, I drank it.
SPY WATCH
I cannot believe a high-end timepiece company hasn’t approached me about becoming a corporate sponsor yet. Every men’s magazine I open, there’s about fifty full-page watch ads, each starring some trout-shouldered golfer with his chin on his fist and a big gleaming watch on his wrist, gazing intently past the camera. Probably at some dude he wants to blow.
Seriously, a golfer? What marketing genius came up with that brilliant idea? Why not just strap your twenty-one jewel, Swiss-movement, sapphire-crystal, stainless-clad, waterproof-to-half-a-goddamn-mile chronometer on the limp and bony wrist of an actor, for Christ’s sake?
Anyway, whatever. If I did have a spy watch, it would have a garrote concealed in the unidirectional bezel. But just talking about it makes me furious.
GARROTE
A garrote is a length of Damascus steel painstakingly hammered and folded and drawn about a million times by a Syrian blacksmith until it becomes a thin, yet incredibly high-tensile piece of wire that I could–if the Watch Co. didn’t suck complete ass–conceal in the unidirectional bezel of my custom spy watch. Which I would then use to strangle the life out of , the douchebag VP of marketing for the Watch Co., who won’t return my calls.
CYANIDE CAPSULE
ISIS agents are required, at all times, to be equipped with two cyanide capsules—a primary capsule and a reserve, in the event the primary fails to activate properly—which are to be used if the agent faces imminent capture by the enemy. The capsules are actually ceramic crowns custom-molded to the agent’s rear-most molars and designed to shatter when he/she bites down with a minimum of 150 pounds of force, causing nearly instantaneous death. Yeah, no thanks.
I had Krieger replace the cyanide in one of my capsules with Binaca, and in the other with Xanax. That way I’m ready for pretty much whatever the day may have in store for me.
HOLLOW COIN
These are neat. Fabricated in such a way as to be totally indistinguishable from an actual coin—down to its exact weight, in micrograms—the hollow coin can be utilized to stealthily carry or pass top-secret information, which is usually formatted onto microfilm or microchips.
I use mine as a conversation starter. With women I meet in bars. It’s an excellent way to segue, more or less organically, into the fact that I, Sterling Archer, am the world’s greatest secret agent. I then take these women home—or into the alley out back, or wherever—and screw them.
KNOCKOUT DROPS
I use these when the hollow coin doesn’t work.38
KNOCKOUT GAS
Ditto. No, not really. Mainly because I’m not sure we even possess the technology to produce knockout gas. Yet. Which is why I constantly check the bulletin board at ISIS. To date, though, all I’ve gotten from my constant bulletin board-checkery is a used pair of inline skates.
ADRENALINE SYRETTE
Often I am required to secure covert ingress into a fortified enemy compound or embassy, or sometimes even a palace, These locations are normally patrolled by two or more giant and ferocious Rottweilers, which I must incapacitate using “hush puppies” (a combination of knockout drops and bacon). The adrenaline syrette is used to reawaken the dogs when I have completed my mission, to avoid alerting my enemies that their perimeter has been breached. The animals are temporarily disoriented when they awake, giving me ample time to escape. I also like to use these on myself on the rare mornings that Woodhouse’s Bloody Mary doesn’t suffice.
NIGHT VISION GOGGLES
Love love love love love the night vision goggles. They are fantastic in the held, obviously but what I really like to do is put them on and sneak into Woodhouse’s room while he’s asleep, Then I just sit by his bed and wait (but never for very long because, since he’s a thousand years old, he gets up about fifty times a night to pee). Then he wakes up to see these glowing green orbs staring at him, which literally scares the piss out of him.39 When he asks me what I’m doing, I say: “Nothing. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep, Woodhouse. Everything is fine.”
X-RAY SPECS
Not a real thing. Grow up.
SMARTPHONES
I’m on the fence about smartphones. Call me a romantic, but there’s just something about a tiny Minox camera or a tape recorder concealed in a fountain pen that just sends me. On the other hand, having this spechnology—plus maps, a video recorder, GPS, a currency converter, translation software, games, an accelerometer, and a telephone—combined into one slim device has done wonders for the fall of my suit jackets.
I mean, I’ve even got a Geiger counter app. It’s just the lite version, though, so it only gives a reading of plus/minus 100 rems (or one sievert).
THE TACTLENECK®
While technically a garment, the Tactleneck®—an even cleverer portmanteau of “tactical” and “turtleneck”—is an indispensable piece of equipment, and one without which I would never consider embarking on a mission. Woven from only the purest Azerbaijani cashmere wool (dyed either black or slightly darker black), the Tactleneck® is flexible enough for me to throw deep, devastating punches, yet formfitting enough to not become caught in abseiling/rappelling gear. And after the mission, I just throw a smart blazer over it and I’m ready for a night on the town.
TACTICAL SUPPOSITORY
Inserted into the rectum before a mission if an intelligence agent believes he is likely to be subject to capture and/or search, the tactical suppository is a watertight, hollow titanium tube about four inches in length and one inch in diameter (or roughly the size of a pro linebacker’s thumb). The suppository can be filled with microfilm, a set of tiny lockpicks and saw blades, local currency, poison, or any number of other items the agent may require on the mission. I was told that because a battery would take up too much interior space, the suppository cannot be made to vibrate.
And before you say: “Man, I’d never put anything up my butt! That’s gay!” go read the book Papillon. Then go watch the movie they made out of it, which stars actual real-life United States Marine and race-car driver Steve McQueen. Then go watch, in this order, The Getaway, Le Mans, Bullitt, Junior Bonner, The Magnificent Seven, and The Great Escape.
Then call Ali MacGraw and ask her who’s gayer: Steve fucking McQueen, or you.
STELLAR NAVIGATION
Fuck off.
TACTICAL DRIVING
I do not drive an Aston Martin DB5.40 Mainly because I don’t have a vagina.41
When I do drive, I prefer at least 350 cubic inches of Detroit muscle under the hood. Something along the lines of, say, a Dodge Challenger. Or some other prospective corporate sponsor. Because I need to know that the power is there if I need it, coiled and ready to strike.
Not unlike a cobra.42
But the way I see it, if people were supposed to drive automobiles, John Henry Ford wouldn’t have invented cabs. Or bourbon. Which was probably invented by some other guy. I don’t know, I honestly don’t really care, and as my editrix has made abundantly clear, this is a how-to book, not a history book. So here’s how to drive like a secret agent:
Big. Fast. Hard.
<
br /> And no, the sexual innuendoes are not lost on me. This is me you’re talking to. Or vice versa.43 But many of the same principles that apply to sex also apply to tactical driving. I don’t necessarily know what those principles are, but I do know that (unless you’re Dan Tanna) you’re not going to ask the car to move in with you. No matter how much junk is in the trunk.44
Oh, and also always try to back into a parking space. I think I remember hearing that.
BRIEF QUESTIONNAIRE #1
1. Who do you think would win in a fight between me and James Bond?
2. What?
3. Well, have you ever even seen me fight?
4. Because keep it up, tough guy … you just keep it up.
OTHER VEHICLES
Sometimes, in my profession as the world’s greatest secret agent, I am required to drive, captain, pilot, or otherwise conduce forwardly, vehicles which are not automobiles. These vehicles include, but are not limited to, the following, including:
AIRBOATS
I personally find airboats rather difficult to drive. That’s because I’m constantly fidgeting around, trying to find a comfortable position for my gigantic, throbbing, purple-veined erection. Oh my God, is there anything in the world more infinitely cool than a screaming airboat?! No! Because an airboat is what happens when some mad, brilliant Civil War scientist decides it might be pretty cool to mount a 700-horsepower aircraft engine on a lightweight aluminum johnboat. Which, when you think about it: how did the Confederates not win the war?
Plus, the seats on an airboat are generally mounted very high on its frame. And while this raises the vessel’s center of gravity a bit higher than the ideal, it also makes it a lot easier to tear through the bayous, blasting the beady eyeballs out of every alligator in sight with an AR-15.45
SNOWMOBILES
Kinda rednecky And those two-stroke engines aren’t doing the ozone layer (or whatever Earth’s giant, invisible space-blanket is called) any big favor. However, like most other things rednecks love (moonshine, tractor pulls, anal sex, boar hunting), snowmobiles are pretty dang fun.
FIAT 500
Technically an automobile. But the “500” refers to its engine displacement. In cubic centimeters. Which isn’t all that impressive for a motorcycle, much less a two-door sedan. Seriously, whenever I see one of these at a stoplight in Italy, I always expect a bunch of midget pagliacci to clamber out and run all around the intersection, whacking each other with sfilatini.
MOTORCYCLES
Although I am fantastic at riding them, and could probably do a wheelie for about a mile if I wanted to, my only real interest in motorcycles concerns the sidecar. Which is a cocktail.
AN ELEPHANT
I realize that an elephant is an animal. But I think it’s perfectly reasonable to include elephants in a section about vehicles because I also realize that I’ve seen about a thousand skinny little brown dudes riding around on about a thousand elephants.
And no, genius, obviously not all at once.
Because that would mean I’m a handsome Roman centurion, gaping at Hannibal and the endless horde of elephant-riding Moors he’s waltzing through the gap in the Pyrenees that I was supposed to be in charge of defending. And also wishing that I wore a tunic, like all the other centurions, because I just shit my pants.
Also: Indian elephants (the ones you can ride) have ears shaped like India. African elephants (the ones you most certainly cannot ride) have ears shaped like Africa.46
POISON
Poison sucks.
I’m not talking about the hair-metal band (which totally sucks) or the Bell Biv DeVoe song (which totally doesn’t). I’m talking about the assorted pills, powders, capsules, liquids, sprays, and umbrella tips that spies use to kill other spies.
I’ve seen agents killed with everything from roach powder to radioactive pellets. Often these poisons are fast acting: if you got hit in the neck with a dart tipped with poison47 from the tiny Phyllobates terribilis, also known as the Poison Dart Frog (holy shit—true story—I just this second got why they call them that) you’d be dead before you reached the end of this sentence.48
Other poisons are slow-acting: Let’s say you’re on a mission in some Eastern Bloc capital (doesn’t matter which one—they’re all crappy) and some potato-or cabbage-faced guy on the metro “accidentally” jabs you in the leg with his umbrella. You beat the shit out of him.49 You complete your mission and fly back to the States. You go out with the stewardess you banged on the return flight. Turns out she’s got like, a nine-day layover, and wants to spend every second of it with you. You make excuses for the first three or four days—during which you basically have to keep your phone plugged into the charger because she’s calling and texting you every waking minute—but by day five she’s really starting to get pouty.
You realize that at some point in the future you will probably have another mission to whatever grim, diesel-choked shithole she’s from, and that you will definitely want some female companionship while you’re there. Either her or maybe that big, blowzy friend of hers who was working coach. So you take her out to a just-okay restaurant, get some drinks down her gullet (and she’s not only Eastern European but also a stewardess, so be prepared to buy it by the liter), and work the conversation around to asking if she would maybe, possibly—and not necessarily tonight, but not necessarily not tonight—be open to a threesome with her big, blowzy friend.
And guess what?
She totally is. Turns out they both are. They do it all the time, as a matter of fact.
You snap your fingers for the check as she makes a phone call. You literally whip the cab driver like a horse to make him drive faster. You get to your place just as Big Blowzy does, and before you know it, all three of you are covered in champagne and grape-seed oil and feathers, and blasting from your stereo—at that very moment—is none other than Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison.”
And then you die.
From whatever was on that umbrella. A week ago. Which is why I have spent the past decade building up an immunity to the seven poisons most commonly used in my line of work, by injecting myself with trace amounts of them. I highly disrecommend trying this yourself. You shouldn’t even mess around with mushrooms unless you’re a board-certified mycologist.50 For reasons of national (not to mention personal) security, I obviously cannot share with you what these seven poisons are, but my mnemonic device for remembering them is CAPGURF.51
And so, in summation: poison sucks. Mostly because there’s nothing you can realistically do to safeguard against it. Not unlike sexually transmitted diseases. Or unwanted pregnancies.
POISON BY THE NUMBERS
• Number of poisons to which I am (probably, hopefully) immune: 7
• Milliliters of poison from the Phyllobates terribilis it takes to kill a grown man: 0.03
• Rank of Bell Biv DeVoe’s Poison on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart: 3
• Telephone number for the Poison Control Center (U.S. only): 800-222-1222
• Times cooler this book would have been with a chapter about cobras: 50
CASINOS
For reasons unbeknownst to me, an inordinate amount of international espionage is centered around casinos. I would like to believe it’s because secret agents—and the women who love them—live incredibly exciting lives and thus thrill at the idea of fortunes, both great and small, being won or lost on the turn of a single card. I would absolutely like to believe that.
But the truth is, it’s much more likely because the type of person who is attracted to a career in the clandestine services to begin with—slightly arrogant, somewhat shallow, hypersexual high-functioning alcoholics with incredibly addictive personalities52—is really just there for the glamorous ambience, the top-shelf booze, and the world-class hookers.
Because we’re not talking Biloxi or Tunica here, guys. We’re not even talking Vegas. We’re talking Monaco.53 And I don’t know what Prince Rainier was thinking about, because those Monegasque hookers (
of which he had his pick!) make Grace Kelly look like Alex Karras.
But, as with many things, there is a price to be paid for such beauty. And the last time I was there, that price was hovering right around $12,000 USD. And while that’s for an overnight outcall, and both GFE and Greek are usually understood—by both parties—to be included in that price, and also these hookers are in fact the most beautiful women in the world, that’s still pretty steep. Because while I have (obviously) paid for it, I sure as hell haven’t ever overpaid.
I’ll get to how I avoid being overcharged for sex in a moment, but first let me clarify one thing about the gaming industry for you: Look around. See that opulent casino you’re standing in? Feel how thick that carpet is? See that inlaid Brazilian rosewood on the roulette wheel? Remember the perfect weave on the doorman’s gabardine topcoat? See those hot-ass hookers?
Now guess how the casino paid for all that. If your answer was “by floating a tax-exempt municipal bond,” you would be incorrect. A private corporation can’t even do that. Which is why the casino paid for all that stuff with money from idiots like you, who walk in there and turn out their pockets every minute of their dumb lives.
“But Archer,” you say, stupidly, “the whole time I’m in there, I’m getting free drinks!”
Well, actually you just drank nine watery, orange-juice-concentrate screwdrivers and paid a couple hundred bucks for the privilege. And guess what, genius: for less than a Jackson you could buy so much grain alcohol that, if you drank it all at once, you would literally die.
“But Archer,” you say, stupidlier, “I gamble for the excitement, for the thrill of it all!”
Congratulations: you’re stupid. Because there’s nothing thrilling about a predetermined outcome. And the outcome of any game in any casino in any country in the world has already been predetermined (by Harvard computer geniuses using complex computer algorithms, who, having completed their task, were then murdered and dissolved in drums of acid by the Mafia). Check out the odds on any casino game. Are they one to one? No, they’re not. Which means that if you play long enough, you’re going to lose all your money. After which you will then probably end up blowing that well-dressed doorman for a five-dollar chip. Which you will immediately go gamble away. Like the pathetic, dick-breathed, nickel-slots junky you have become.
How to Archer Page 3