OMISSION: Nets Skip Venezuelan Leader’s Journey to Nobel Peace Prize

Per The Wall Street Journal:

Wearing a wig and a disguise, María Corina Machado began her escape from Venezuela on Monday afternoon.

The Venezuelan opposition leader was trying to get to Norway by Wednesday in time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize that she won for challenging Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro. First she had to get from the Caracas suburb where she has been in hiding for a year to a coastal fishing village, where a skiff awaited her.

Over the course of 10 nerve-racking hours, Machado and two people helping her escape hit 10 military checkpoints, avoiding capture each time, before she reached the coast by midnight, said a person close to the operation.

The report goes on to note that a call was made to the U.S. military, so as to give a heads up and therefore avoid being blown up along the route to Curacao like a cocaine-ferrying drug boat. Machado had backup along the way:

Around the same time of their crossing, a pair of U.S. Navy F-18s flew into the Gulf of Venezuela and spent roughly 40 minutes flying in tight circles near the route that would lead from the coast to Curaçao, according to flight-tracking data. It was the closest incursion of U.S. aircraft into Venezuelan airspace since the U.S. military buildup began in September.