How to Archer (5 page)

While the flare gun—also known as a Very pistol—was originally designed for use as a signaling device, you can also use it to shoot people. People who then catch on fire.

No. I consider them sloppy.

I could basically just start typing a list of nouns. Because if you have been trained properly,
anything
can be used as a weapon. Take my finely crafted Walther PPK, for example: at some point it will run out of bullets.
³³
But when it does, guess what: it weighs twenty-three ounces.
³⁴
Now guess what else weighs about twenty-three ounces. I’ll tell you: a framing hammer. Now guess what you wouldn’t want to get smashed in the teeth with. I’ll tell you: either of those.

And so, just look around. Chances are that within five feet of you, there are at least three items—not including your bare, muscular hands—that you could use to kill a person: your keys, a brassiere, an empty jeroboam of champagne, a billiard ball, an ivory-handled shoehorn, a stiletto heel, another empty jeroboam of champagne, a double-ended glass dildo, an entire set of barbecue tools… See? And that’s just me looking at the stuff lying on or around my bed.

The point is, almost anything can be used as a weapon, And, as with many things in life, the only limit is your imagination: I once killed a guy with a gorgeous Raymor ashtray.
³⁵

I don’t care for this term. I feel it debases the professionalism of intelligence operatives, who are the bravest, most selfless public servants in the world and who put their very lives at risk every single day to keep freedom-loving peoples safe from tyranny and oppression. Also, it’s very nearly impossible to use the term gadget without preceding it with the word nifty.

But I can’t think of a better term. For a while I tried getting people to say spechnology (a clever portmanteau of “spy” and “technology”), but I couldn’t get anybody to get on board for the big win. Anyway, as an ISIS agent I have access to a dizzying array of spechnological aids. Our in-house scientist, Dr. Algernop
³⁶
Krieger, is constantly either inventing or improving devices with which to stun, kill, bedazzle, set on fire, confuse, or otherwise incapacitate enemy agents:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I use these when the hollow coin doesn’t work.
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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.

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.

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.
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When he asks me what I’m doing, I say: “Nothing. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep, Woodhouse. Everything is fine.”

Not a real thing. Grow up.

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).

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.

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.