told us.

The plan was that a member of our crew would switch places with Abdulemam at a fast food restaurant, and we would depart on a private plane from an airport runway usually reserved for VIPs. Ramsey's entourage would include two Abdulemam lookalikes. The TV host and HRF correspondent Elizabeth Chambers would also join the crew as a faux correspondent for Ramsey, knowing how to juggle the circus environment we sought to create while keeping the maneuver on point.

Our precedent for a high-profile visit was Kim Kardashian's ridiculous trip to Bahrain , in which she generated worldwide publicity for the regime, calling it "the prettiest place on earth" and declaring her love for the kingdom. Bahrain is desperate for as much "normal" celebrity activity as possible and willmuster at the airport. In Bahrain, people on private planes and in a VIP delegation don't get their fingerprints scanned or subjected to interviews. They simply go from limo to jet without pesky security checks.

But then, 14 hours before the operation was to be set in motion, as a team member was headed to the airport, Wedaddy, Abdulemam's only conduit in the past two years, sent an urgent text from his hotel in Tunisia: "Abort plan, Bjorn has left Fiji."

As luck would have it, Abdulemam was given a "now or never" chance by someone in Bahrain to exit through Saudi Arabia in a car with a secret compartment. Passport control did not inspect the car. From Saudi, he went to Kuwait by land through a sparsely patrolled area,