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Welcome to SpyC, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum.

I'm your host, Sasha Inber, and we're at the end

of a month of episodes on Latin America, crossing borders and decades to explore clandestine

activities that have shaped our world. Before Delta Force captured Nicholas Maduro, Brian Stern went on a secret mission in Venezuela.

The veteran and Purple Heart recipient was there to extract opposition leader Maria Carina Machado,

who had been living in hiding for her safety.

Brian took her to Oslo, where she received a Nobel Peace Prize but missed the formal ceremony,

and this daring operation, which he named Operation Golden Dynamite, inspired by the founder

of the Nobel Peace Prize, who invented dynamite, involved land, sea, and air. It's one of many high-stakes evacuations Brian has conducted

through his nonprofit organization, Gray Bull Rescue. We sat down together to hash out the details

a few days after he returned from Venezuela.

Brian, welcome to SpyCast.

Thanks for having me.

You still soar from the operation?

A little bit, getting better.

It's been like a week and a half already, so we're doing okay.

And you said that this is your 800th mission.

What do you say to yourself every morning that you get up to do a new mission? Should have gone to law school or something else. Like the fire department, we don't hope

to have to work. We don't want people to have to call us because when they do, they usually call to everybody

else already.

And the conversations usually start off very desperate and poor and not pleasant.

...