The trickiest moment came when everything seemed like it could go wrong. In the middle of the night, in the Caribbean, one of the two ships lost its main navigation system. Without lights, with waves up to three meters and in small boats, possibility of sinking … It was real. This is not, however, an unexpected failure. “There were two ships and one lost the main GPS. We had a secondary one. We have redundant systems, but the main GPS, the good one, failed,” explained Bryan Stern.
“We planned for this. We planned for this. Either way, we operate in the dark. “It wasn’t catastrophic.” In his subsequent speech to several international media outlets, he stressed that this type of incident is common in high-risk operations: “When these operations fail, it is rarely because missiles arrive. It’s always for something stupid.
This episode sums up the tone of the entire operation that allowed María Corina Machado to be expelled from Venezuela. Stern, a U.S. Army veteran and founder of the private organization Grable Rescue, recreated the mission in the first person during an interview with a group of international media, days after the opposition leader’s clandestine departure to Curaçao and from there to Norway.
The story began far from the Caribbean, on a commercial flight
“This Friday evening, I left Aruba (…) to go to Florida. On the connecting flight to Miami, I turned on the phone and received a series of messages from a friend of mine (…) He knew we were doing things in Venezuela and asked me if I would be interested in hearing about a very interesting project (…). “There weren’t a lot of details.”
Stern initially thought it was a regular mission. “He asked me if he could share my number (…). I said yes, no problem. I asked him if that was a good thing. He told me yes, it was something big, very good (…). “I thought he was a rich American, an oil guy stuck in Venezuela.”
The true dimension of the mission was revealed almost immediately. “They put me in touch with someone from María’s team who, at first, didn’t tell me it was María (…), but she said some things and in about two minutes we were able to figure out who this person was. And that changes things.” The mission became the riskiest of his career. “Operation Golden Dynamite (…) was the extraction of María Corina Machado (…). This operation was very complicated. “It was very dangerous.”
Machado had been in hiding for months due to persecution by the Nicolas Maduro regime and for two years without seeing her children. “This has been hidden for a long time. “He hasn’t seen his children for about two years…, not because he wants to, but because he is threatened because he fights for what he believes in.”
The schedule has increased the risk
His intention to arrive in Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize had activated all the surveillance systems of Chavismo. “Everyone knew he was trying to get to the Nobel ceremony… they knew that at that time, if he was in Venezuela, he would surely try to leave. So it was very dangerous.”
To reduce this risk, the team resorted to confusion tactics. “That’s why we did several things to confuse, hide, deceive and in some cases mislead different people (…), even good people (…), so that this mission could succeed.”
Throughout the land phase, there was a risk of detection. Stern said that on the ground “there are many eyes” and that controls and checkpoints “are very real.” He explained that not all checks are the same and some are handled by inexperienced staff and others by intelligence officers, requiring each situation to be assessed differently. He insisted that throughout the operation he had been afraid of detection.
The plan included several phases, but the decisive section was the maritime part.
“This operation included a land component, a maritime component and also a small air component (…). “Every aspect and every moment of this operation was dangerous.” Stern insisted that the sea posed the biggest challenge: “The maritime domain, anything in the water, is difficult. “This is the most unforgiving operating environment we work in. »
“The water was incredibly rough the night this happened. “We were in waves of one and a half and three meters, in very small boats and in total darkness.” Sailing was done practically blind. “Normally, with rough seas and during the day, you can read the waves (…). We didn’t have that luxury. “We couldn’t see anything.” “We were navigating with a GPS and a digital map and we were constantly taking hits.”
The physical exhaustion was extreme. “I can tell you I’m a pretty tough guy. My whole body is still sore from this operation. “My knees, my hips, my back hurt.”
The encounter on the high seas did not bring immediate relief. “When we say (guaranteed objective) (…), people want to applaud. The problem is that you still have to go home. “That’s where bad things happen.” “My blood pressure went up, not down. We became more nervous, not less.
Stern remembers the exact moment he helped Machado onto the boat. “When I picked her up and put her on the boat (…), she was soaked. “I was soaked.” During those hours, Machado spoke neither about politics nor the Nobel Prize. “He didn’t talk about the Nobel Prize at all. “He talked about seeing his daughter for the first time in two years.”
The tension only dissipated when he saw her safe in Europe. “Every moment of this operation, until I saw her in Norway, I was worried about detection. Every moment.” “My blood pressure finally dropped when I saw her in Norway hugging her daughter. “That’s when I took a deep breath.”
Stern added a detail he will never forget, he said.
After the rescue, Machado recorded a video as proof of life. “She recorded a proof of life video. “She says her name, she says she’s alive, she’s safe, thanks to Grable Rescue.” For him, this moment was particularly meaningful: “When I heard our name spoken by her, it will always stay with me. “It excites me.”
As he finishes his testimony, returned to Machado and the personal meaning of the operation. “She will say that there was a crazy night, once in December (…), a very long journey, very cold and very humid. He will say: (these crazy people came from the United States and took me to my daughter). And it happened just as I was receiving the Nobel Prize.
For Stern, the conclusion is unequivocal. “He’s a force of nature. Being able to play a small role in allowing this force of nature to do what it needs to do is huge for me. I could stop working now and I would be happy. “We are all a little amazed to have participated in this truly historic moment.”
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