How to Archer (15 page)

I’m not going to, but I bet if I read back over this book, I would realize that a lot of the advice in it is incredibly expensive. I mean, the Triple-A Power Play alone requires a hundred thousand dollars in working capital. And although you walk away with all of it—minus cab fare and however much it costs you to take an obnoxiously drunk herd of beet-faced Asians out for short ribs—you need to possess (or at least have temporary access to) that kind of money to begin with. Which I do.

But which a lot of you probably do not. Which is not my fault: I don’t vote Democrat.
¹⁰⁰

Okay, I’m out of my skull with boredom (though I’m sure you’re not) and the word count is looking pretty good, so I’m just going to breeze through this part. For a change.

The first thing you should do is assess your financial situation. Which I bet is shitty.

The next thing you should do is figure out a way to improve it. I would suggest, unless you are already a multi-millionaire, that you quit your job: it’s obviously not getting you where you need to be, which is multi-millionairedom. Then go find a better job. Something that you like, but that also pays you assloads of money to show up at. And you’re on your own with the job search: I’m not a guidance counselor. What I am is the world’s greatest secret agent.

Which means that, in addition to my base salary (which is decent) and my bonuses (also decent), I have access to hundreds upon hundreds of thousands upon thousands of dollars (much more than decent). Because international espionage is an expensive proposition: night-vision goggles, 81mm rocket launchers, chartered flights, boutique hotels, high-end whores, ski passes, bullets, liquor, 81mm shells
for
the rocket launchers, helicopter gas… All this stuff costs money.

Which I am able to
expense.

And I’m just going to assume that my mother is too green with jealousy to ever read this book, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you that not only do I expense everything, I do so with about a 15 percent pad. In my experience, 15 percent is about as far as I can push it. Any more than that and my mother starts asking a lot of uncomfortable questions, like “Was it really necessary to charter a helicopter full of liquor and whores and 81mm rocket launchers to a ski resort?”
¹⁰¹

But padding my operational expenses is only a drop in the bucket of—well,
embezzling
has kind of a negative connotation, so let’s call it something else. Like
personal wealth-building.
And the bulk of my personal wealth has been built from diverting funds that were supposed to have gone toward bribing foreign operatives and officials. I know, it’s hard to hear that: as with torture, you wince to think of your government’s relying on bribery to further its political goals. Well, grow up: protecting your freedom, not unlike grinding doe-eyed calves into those fucking sliders you can’t seem to get enough of, isn’t pretty.

What
is
pretty is the fact that almost any foreign-intelligence operative (who, remember, are just mustachioed versions of me) or corrupt official will settle for less than the agreed-upon bribe: If he said he’d give you the schematics of his country’s secret nuclear weapons facility for
three
million dollars, it’s a safe bet that he’ll give them to you for two. Especially with the barrel of a (beautifully made) Walther PPK in his mouth. The extra million goes into an untraceable bank account in the Caymans. Or the Isle of Man. I personally like to spread it around a little.

I know: you’re wondering why I agreed to write this (impossibly long) book if I have millions of dollars salted away in secret numbered accounts all over the globe. Yeah, hi: Did you read this book? Or did you just skip ahead to this page? I don’t have millions of dollars, dodo.

In fact, I hate to admit it but I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. Mainly because I do things like rent $12,000 whores, eat a hundred bucks’ worth of eggs every single morning of my damn life, and pay my tailor to widen the lapels—on every single suit that I own—one-sixteenth of an inch every autumn. Which I then pay to have
re-narrowed
one-sixteenth of an inch every spring.
¹⁰²

But, even though I’m a bit of a spendthrift, one area where you
won’t
catch me wasting money is on taxes. I’m not (due to my lack of a vagina) a qualified tax advisor, so any advice which follows is merely for informational purposes. But if you pay taxes, you’re an idiot.

And not only do I not pay taxes, I’ve never even filed a return. And I can’t start now, because then they’ll know I’ve never filed before. And in researching this kickass book, I learned that while failure to pay one’s taxes is merely a misdemeanor (I think), failure to
file
a tax return is a
felony.
Which would mean I wouldn’t be allowed to vote. Which I don’t do.

Because the United States government doesn’t even know I exist.

Well, they probably know I exist (especially now that I’m a bestselling author) but they don’t know where to find me. And even if they did, good luck with
that.
But it’s a moot point, because Sterling Malory Archer has never received taxable income of any sort whatsoever. Because when I was born, my mother was foresightful enough to bribe the relevant authorities into declaring that she gave birth to identical twin sons, one of whom lived only a few hours. Which was just long enough for him to receive both a notarized birth certificate and a Social Security number, before being given a tasteful burial (in a heartbreakingly small white coffin).

And so 100 percent of my taxable income, as well as any and all stocks, bonds, and property that I may own—including my 4,300 square-foot penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park—is actually in the name of my fictional deceased twin sibling:
Elvis Roosevelt Archer.
¹⁰³

Just go to a hospital.

A brief compendium of useful information about several countries to which one could reasonably expect to travel in one’s role as the world’s greatest secret agent. And also, Canada.

What’s not to like about a nation that’s not only covered with reinforced-concrete machine gun bunkers, but also formerly ruled by a king named Zog? Answer: everything else.

This tiny principality is actually a co-principality, meaning it’s ruled by two princes. Which makes me wonder: What ever happened to the Spin Doctors? Were they all murdered?

The country so nice they named it twice. Actually they just named it once, and that name is terrible. Which is fitting, because both Bosnia
and
Herzegovina are pretty terrible themselves.

I like Quebec because it’s just like being in France, only everybody drives pickup trucks. Plus, I heard all the Quebecoises are descended from actual French whores from a long time ago!

I don’t care what it wants to be called, I’m still calling it the Ivory Coast.
Côte d’Ivoire
sounds like some. type of cheese, The
Ivory Coast
sounds like something out of Middle Earth.

No matter how poor a person in the Dominican Republic may be, they will normally laugh at their situation and say something like “Well I may live in a dirt-floored typhus incubator of a shack, but at least I’m not Haitian!” When this happens, it is appropriate to laugh along with them. (Actually you must laugh, or you will be suspected of being a Haitian sympathizer.)

It is acceptable—even encouraged—to eat the tablecloth: don’t worry; it’s almost a food.

Please do not construe this as a lame attempt at humor: the fries are actually great. Thin-cut and fried in impossibly hot oil and sprinkled with sea salt, they’re just amazing with
moules.

Not Gambia,
the
Gambia. And just like alumni of
the
Ohio State University, Gambians make a gigantic deal about pointing this out. And strangely, the mascot of both is the buckeye.

Its capital, Budapest, is actually two separate cities: Buda and Pest. Its main exports are mainly agricultural: wheat, corn, paprika, sugar beets, canola oil, and Gabor sisters.

The national dish of Iceland is
hákarl,
which is a dead shark chunked into a hole on the beach, urinated on by people, covered with sand, and left to ferment for five months. Hard to believe their economy collapsed. What with all that rancid piss-shark readily available for export.

When entering a Japanese home, custom dictates that you remove your shoes. When riding on a Japanese train, custom dictates that you chain-smoke right near me the whole time.

Sounds made-up.

During WWII, Latvia was invaded by the Soviet Union, And then by Nazi Germany. Then by the Soviets again. After a brief
reinvasion
by the Nazis, they finally chose the Soviets, In my opinion—although I’m no expert, by any means—this is why the women all have bangs.

By far, the best Mongolian beef I have ever tasted in my life was positively, absolutely, definitely, 100 percent
not
served to me in Mongolia. In fact, I’d avoid eating there altogether.

Another nation—along with the Dominican Republic and Cuba—whose national pastime, due to lengthy occupation by American soldiers, is baseball. And also whose women are mocha-skinned goddesses with whom I want nothing more in life than to have sex until my dick bleeds.

I always get this confused with Oran. By which I mean Oran “Juice” Jones, whose hit single “The Rain” peaked at number nine on the Billboard Top 100 chart. Which should’ve been way higher.

Home to the world’s most strategically important shipping canal, Panama is also great for blasting out of your car stereo as you drive down to Myrtle Beach, just
pounding
some beers.

Paraguay is often confused with Uruguay.

Peru is the native habitat of the endangered Spectacled Bear, the species that served as the inspiration for… Paddington Bear! Paddington Bear! Paddington Bear! Yay, Paddington!

To be honest, Qatar only made the list because I’m pretty sure it’s the only country in the world that starts with Q. It’s basically the “xylophone” of world factbooks. And also very sandy.

Once, while out for a jog through the diesel-choked streets of Bucharest, I was pulled down by a snarling pack of stray dogs. There’s no joke here: this actually happened to me.

In recent years, Somalia has gained a well-deserved international reputation for being home to a large number of pirates. Which is probably why Somalia is so stoked.

You are going to be the ugliest person in the entire country, This is perfectly normal.

South Africa has a bad reputation for its decades-long, often-brutal segregationist policy of apartheid. A policy which I never understood, because black chicks are just incredibly hot.

Don’t touch the whores on the head.

Uruguay is often confused with Paraguay.

Before you visit Vatican City spend a little time in Nicaragua. Or Guatemala. Or El Salvador. Or Honduras. And then just walk around the Vatican, growing more and more furious.

It may sound like a chain of casual-dining steak restaurants, but it’s actually a war-torn desert region whose borders are hotly disputed by Morocco, Spain, and Mauritania. And so, like a casual-dining steak restaurant, there is absolutely no reason to ever go there ever.

Not a real country. If it were, I bet its national anthem would be “Dem Bones.” Played by a grinning skeleton on his own ribs. Which is why we should launch a preemptive strike
now.

Also pretty sandy. From what I hear.

I used to go here when it was still called the Belgian Congo, Before the hipsters found out about it and ruined it. Like they do everything else.

And so, finally, we come to the end of the book. Did you learn anything? I hope you did. Because man, I sure did. I learned that about 95 percent of the information in the book you just bought was readily available, for totally free, on the internets. The other 5 percent I just made up.

I would like to thank my editrix at HarperCollins, whose name I never learned, for the countless hours she spent helping me shape my raw, visceral experiences as the world’s greatest secret agent into a practical guide for all those young men and women who wish to follow in my footsteps and enter into the fascinating and often dangerous world of the clandestine services; my colleagues at ISIS, not only for their courage, honor, and sense of duty but also for their kind words of support as I delved into often painful memories to bring this book to life; my tireless manservant Woodhouse, whose blind willingness to cater to my every whim—no matter how whimsical, and often at great expense to himself, both financially and physically—made writing this book, if not possible, then at least a lot easier; and lastly, and yet most of all, I would like to thank my mother, the “unsinkable” Malory Archer, who gave me not only my life but also my calling: as the dashing prince consort to the seductive and deadly queen known as espionage.