Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton, Sarah Burnette, missus Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 3: It's miss sorry, I'm a modern woman.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime. Yeah, got a question for.
Speaker 3: You, Yes, Captain Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 2: Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I do big birthdays.
Speaker 2: Big birthdays.
Speaker 3: Big birthdays are ridiculous because it's funny. Like we've talked
Speaker 3: before about that in this Ridiculous Crime universe. The difference
Speaker 3: in how we celebrate birthdays, said your big birthday guy,
Speaker 3: and I am. I've forgotten my own birthday on.
Speaker 2: Multiple multiple.
Speaker 3: However, I want to celebrate other people's birthdays. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: I like to celebrate yours.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: I like to celebrate our founding fathers various birthdays.
Speaker 2: It is true. Big holidays got the time off, so
Speaker 2: why not.
Speaker 3: Then I found out about a big birthday for a
Speaker 3: friend of the show birthday, big birthday baby. A friend
Speaker 3: of the show, you may remember her summer sent us
Speaker 3: that or probably actually I should say, sent me the
Speaker 3: black garlic dog. Yes, said the proper it was. It
Speaker 3: was an interesting taste sensation, and I did kind of
Speaker 3: like rubbing it on my teeth. And then showing you
Speaker 3: you didn't like that. I liked it anyway.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 3: Kaya Summer's sister. Let us know that on July twenty ninth,
Speaker 3: Summer is turning thirty. What And I can't believe that. God,
Speaker 3: Summer is like, Summer's a friend of the show.
Speaker 2: Totally happy birthday, Summer.
Speaker 3: And I you know, for friends of the show, I
Speaker 3: like to give them a big, rousing happy birthday. No,
Speaker 3: and so I mean I do have the I have limits.
Speaker 2: You saw my instinct. I'm like, we're doing a musical number.
Speaker 3: Well, I think people need to know that. I've heard you.
Speaker 3: You call people on their birthdays and you sing a
Speaker 3: very robust and enthusiastic Frank Sinatra day.
Speaker 2: Late Frank Late do be Dooby do exactly late, Strangers.
Speaker 3: In the Night, and it's so loud. I've been in
Speaker 3: the studio waiting for you, and I hear you down
Speaker 3: in the hall. What the h double hockey sticks? So
Speaker 3: Summer you are going to miss out on that. But
Speaker 3: I just want to also, I want to thank you
Speaker 3: once again for the garlic dip and wish you the
Speaker 3: best thirtieth birthday around. Someday I'm going to turn thirty,
Speaker 3: and I hope it's great.
Speaker 2: Happy birthday.
Speaker 3: And that is ridiculous, ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what's else's ridiculous, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Tell me?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll have to ask you a question. What's the
Speaker 2: most ridiculous thing a person could blow up to advance
Speaker 2: a political cause?
Speaker 3: Oh, don't answer that.
Speaker 2: I'll just ask you a better question. How about a
Speaker 2: nuclear reactor? Oh?
Speaker 3: I was going like farm antals.
Speaker 2: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 2: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 2: one hundred percent ridiculous. Oh, Elizabeth, Today I have the
Speaker 2: story for you of a man who went to ridiculous
Speaker 2: lengths for a cause he believed in. And since I
Speaker 2: don't want you to worry, I'll just tell you going
Speaker 2: in our ninety nine percent murder free guarantees, still stands
Speaker 2: no violations of the guarantee in this episode. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: just tell you that right out the front.
Speaker 3: Thank goodness.
Speaker 2: Now, to set the stage, I'd like to quote the
Speaker 2: timeless words of Pee Wee Herman. Yeah, I'm a loner,
Speaker 2: Dottie Reberend.
Speaker 3: You know I say that all the time.
Speaker 2: For you specifically, this is a story of a loner,
Speaker 2: a rebel, and I love him nice. But more than that,
Speaker 2: it's the story of a dope, smoking, bike riding, commune
Speaker 2: living hippie who tries to blow up a nuclear reactor
Speaker 2: in order to free black South Africans from apartheid. So
Speaker 2: obviously I double.
Speaker 3: Love it is there it is. Oh my god, he
Speaker 3: checks all your boxes.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. So Elizabeth, what do you know about
Speaker 2: the South African nuclear energy program?
Speaker 3: Well, it's really interesting because it started. Why are you
Speaker 3: laughing at me?
Speaker 2: I was just waiting at you know what?
Speaker 3: Fine? Oh, I don't know. Zaren Man explained it to me.
Speaker 2: Well, it happens to have been in the news a
Speaker 2: lot lately if you followed that sort of thing. On
Speaker 2: July sixteenth of this very year, Elizabeth, the British tabloid
Speaker 2: The Mirror reported that, and I quote, a South African
Speaker 2: nuclear power plant suffered three incidents involving airborne radioactive contamination
Speaker 2: after a loss of power. The three separate contamination events
Speaker 2: took place inside the Coburg Power Station, the only nuclear
Speaker 2: power station in Africa, on June thirtieth, July second, and
Speaker 2: July seventh.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's exactly what I was about to tell you.
Speaker 2: I figured, well, naturally, the words airborne radioactive contamination sound bad.
Speaker 3: It does sound bad because they are bad. Yeah, they're bad.
Speaker 2: They're bad business right now, as the Mirror further reported.
Speaker 2: To help ameliorate any concern from the general public, and
Speaker 2: I quote, South Africa's nuclear regulator said Thursday that no
Speaker 2: radioactive material leaked into the environment on the three occasions
Speaker 2: and it was all contained inside the station with no
Speaker 2: danger to the public. So that's good. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 2: need for anyone to take a karen silkwood shower woo. Right,
Speaker 2: that's the term you don't hear very often.
Speaker 3: Yeah. A friend of mine was just recently saying that
Speaker 3: he uses that reference a couple times a year and
Speaker 3: people don't know what it is. Really was like, are
Speaker 3: you kidding me, I'm always talking about silkwood showers.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's where I pulled it from. I heard you
Speaker 2: use it recently with one of the interns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the one there. I'm like, you smell. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to go give you a silkwood shower. No,
Speaker 3: not a human in turn.
Speaker 2: Anyway, back to South Africa Nuclear Energy program. In the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, South Africa sent young scientists to the United
Speaker 2: States to study nuclear physics and nuclear energy. Two decades later,
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventies, that same generation of scientists now led
Speaker 2: South Africa's pursuit of its own nuclear energy ambitions, which
Speaker 2: included building a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 3: Okay, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: So the South African government, they promised that they didn't
Speaker 2: want to build nuclear weapons for war. No, South Africa
Speaker 2: wanted to build nuclear bombs that were to be used
Speaker 2: in their mining operations. You know, all the diamond minds.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? That's a great way. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: perfect way to do it.
Speaker 2: Are you having troubled digging deeper open pits in the
Speaker 2: earth to mine your diamonds? Have you considered a nuclear bomb?
Speaker 3: That's so bizarre?
Speaker 2: Yes, obviously, I think that was just what they call
Speaker 2: in the fiction telling business, a lie.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's definitely, that's that's a lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a copper story, right. So, the South
Speaker 2: Africa government really wanted to build nuclear weapons to fend
Speaker 2: off the Soviet Union and to scare them off from
Speaker 2: further helping the black South Africans and the African National
Speaker 2: Congress aka the ANC who were trying to overthrow apartheid
Speaker 2: South Africa's.
Speaker 3: Government Soviet support.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, Zimbabwe did as well. Basically a lot
Speaker 2: of the they were moving down the continent and Soviets
Speaker 2: were helping them. So there's a fight over Angola. Na,
Speaker 2: maybe a South Africa is encroaching, Zimbabwe is fighting. The
Speaker 2: Cubans are getting involved in Angola. It was like a
Speaker 2: wild business and it.
Speaker 3: Hits the economic interests of Western Europe.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, yeah, exactly. So now enter our crimer of
Speaker 2: the day, Rodney Wilkinson.
Speaker 3: Rodney.
Speaker 2: Rodney's a curious chap Elizabeth, to say the least, like
Speaker 2: homie was once the national fencing champion of South Africa. Okay,
Speaker 2: but we were getting ahead of ourselves. As Rodney tells
Speaker 2: his own life story and an interview with South Africahistory
Speaker 2: dot Org and I quote so I was born in
Speaker 2: forty nine in Parktown, North Joe burg. I was the
Speaker 2: second son of four of us. My father was born
Speaker 2: in Canada, also a soldier in the artillery in the
Speaker 2: Second World War, and that influenced our childhood quite a
Speaker 2: lot because we would go on holiday with his old
Speaker 2: soldier friends so we learned to shoot at a tender
Speaker 2: age and we learned to drive. Life in joe Burgh
Speaker 2: for us was a typically white middle class Yeah. So
Speaker 2: you notice I'm not doing any South African accent because
Speaker 2: it's not what I can do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That's a tough one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's very specific. Now back to Rodney. He
Speaker 2: grows up in this apartheid South Africa. It's a middle
Speaker 2: class existence. He's raised in a military family.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: However, things are far more complicated than that little thumbnail
Speaker 2: sketch might suggest, because, for instance, his father was a Communist. Huh,
Speaker 2: not when Rodney knew him as his father, but rather
Speaker 2: back when his father was a college student. Except for
Speaker 2: then of Stalin's whole wave of purges, the mass imprisonment,
Speaker 2: the lives lost, his dad soured on Communism. However, he
Speaker 2: still believed in looking out for others in community, so
Speaker 2: he taught his children those same values. Anyway, Rodney gets
Speaker 2: into fencing as a kid, and as he tells it,
Speaker 2: I was nine when I got into fencing. A friend
Speaker 2: of my brother had Austrian friends who were fencers, very good,
Speaker 2: and my brother went along. And when I turned nine,
Speaker 2: my mom said you go along two. They taught us
Speaker 2: free on condition that we came twice a week. So
Speaker 2: by the time I was sixteen, I was doing very well,
Speaker 2: and by the time I was twenty three, I was winning.
Speaker 2: And eventually I won all three weapons, almost second in Sable,
Speaker 2: but top in Foyle and EPI so boom boom boom
Speaker 2: National champion. Now as good as Rodney was with a
Speaker 2: sword in his hand, he couldn't compete at the Olympics
Speaker 2: because he's South African and at the time, the apartheid
Speaker 2: state was banned from international competitions. Yeah right, and so
Speaker 2: Rodney eventually he follows his father in a military service,
Speaker 2: but he has a hard time in the army because
Speaker 2: he supports the anti war movement and the hippies in
Speaker 2: the US and abroad, and this friction compels Rodney to
Speaker 2: go a wall. Yeah, but then he gets lured back
Speaker 2: to the military because the military locates him and they
Speaker 2: threatened him to prison unless he rejoins his division, which
Speaker 2: eventually does. Anyway, one night, Rodney and his mates in
Speaker 2: the army they steal a Mercedes Benz troop carrier and
Speaker 2: he takes it on a beer run, after which they
Speaker 2: all you know, turn up drunk at the airport and
Speaker 2: they're all headed home except for Rodney. He's not flying out,
Speaker 2: so he decides, I'm just going to keep the military
Speaker 2: personnel carrier and go a wall again. Why not? A right? So,
Speaker 2: as Rodney tells it, I decided to take the truck
Speaker 2: and drive it till it ran out of fuel and
Speaker 2: then hitchhike.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: I love that, right, simple plan. Not many were moving parts.
Speaker 3: Till the wheels come off, Just do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean it's a solid plan in theory.
Speaker 2: But then again, driving drunk alone in the bush in
Speaker 2: the dark of night, but you can probably see where
Speaker 2: this is going. Rodney gets tired. Eventually he falls asleep
Speaker 2: driving and boom, he wrecks. Back to Rodney's account, as
Speaker 2: I drove about midnight, I fell asleep at the wheel
Speaker 2: and turned this thing over right upside down, head over
Speaker 2: heels over a culvert. I injured myself severely. I had
Speaker 2: a hole in my forehead about an inch deep.
Speaker 3: Oh that's an injury.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seemed your brain that's a big yeah. But
Speaker 2: it's actually way worse than it sounds. Rodney recalls, I
Speaker 2: broke my skull and I was pinned underneath the vehicle
Speaker 2: upside down, with the steering wheel in my chest and
Speaker 2: feet up in the pedal well, hot oils pouring out
Speaker 2: of the engine onto me. Yeah. So he's stuck there
Speaker 2: alone with his heavy ass military truck on top of him,
Speaker 2: leaking hot oil onto him, and Rodney has to do
Speaker 2: what he has to do. He has to rescue himself,
Speaker 2: which he does as he remembered it. Quote, he managed
Speaker 2: to wear the ground away with my shoulders and got
Speaker 2: out before it possibly exploded and didn't explode. I walked
Speaker 2: till dawn and found a farmhouse. So imagine you're this
Speaker 2: farmer in the middle of nowhere and the skinny army
Speaker 2: kid comes to your door at the crack of dawn
Speaker 2: and he's in bad shape, like he's got motor oil
Speaker 2: sticking to burnt skin. Yeah, and he's like, use your phone. So,
Speaker 2: as Rodney tells it, I was covered in blood. The
Speaker 2: farmer called the cops and made me sit outside until
Speaker 2: they arrived. He gave me coffee. We were not the first,
Speaker 2: judging by the reaction of the farmer. It happened before,
Speaker 2: and he was hundreds of kilometers south of the action. Now,
Speaker 2: when Rodney says action, he means the illegal invasion of
Speaker 2: neighboring Angola by the South African Army, because this accident
Speaker 2: was bad news because if Prescott wind of it, it
Speaker 2: would have been evidence of South Africa's illegal military recursion. Okay, okay, right,
Speaker 2: So the army they make Rodney promise he won't talk
Speaker 2: to the press, and then they make him sign a
Speaker 2: document that says he won't sue the army for his injuries,
Speaker 2: and then they basically release him. So around this time,
Speaker 2: Rodney leaves the Army. He goes to live in Cape Town.
Speaker 2: He becomes a fencing instructor. This is also where he
Speaker 2: meets a guy who tells him about this hippie commune.
Speaker 2: So then Rodney jumps at the idea of living there.
Speaker 2: And while he's living there, one of his fencing students
Speaker 2: tells him about a new opportunity Rodney might also be
Speaker 2: down to do. And as Rodney tells it, and I
Speaker 2: quote one of my fencing pupils, Dennis Penaluna, and a
Speaker 2: pub claimed to be a communist, and he thought that
Speaker 2: the way to provoke the revolution was to behave like
Speaker 2: the oppressor and suggested I contact his friend who was
Speaker 2: an in engineer at Cobourg for a job.
Speaker 3: I love all these commies and defensing right is that.
Speaker 2: He's like, you should get a job at the nuclear facility.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm going to be late to practice
Speaker 2: on Wednesday. So when he's in college, Rodney had studied engineering,
Speaker 2: so he was qualified to be a draftsman on this
Speaker 2: construction crew. And lo and behold, I got the job.
Speaker 2: So this sets up his next adventure as an undercover
Speaker 2: revolutionary in a nuclear power plant.
Speaker 3: That's safe, right, super safe?
Speaker 2: So for now, elizabethill, let's take a break and after
Speaker 2: these messages, we joined the revolution.
Speaker 4: Oh and we're back, Elizabeth, Yes we are.
Speaker 2: You're ready to join the revolution? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, good? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Where were we? That's right. It's the late nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: and my man Rodney Wilkinson is living on a commune
Speaker 2: while working at a nuclear power plant, about to become
Speaker 2: an undercover operative for the anti apartheid resistance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, he's a lot.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, late nineteen seventies. Buttons, if he was like
Speaker 2: saving whales, I think he would cover the mall.
Speaker 3: Oh he would, but instead he's on God did he
Speaker 3: wear his little Beekeeper outfit.
Speaker 2: Oh, that would be awesome. Like at work skin Tech.
Speaker 2: I've got a match at nine tonight.
Speaker 3: So I got to I gotta stay ready, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: The Cobourg Nuclear Power Station is located about nineteen miles
Speaker 2: north of Cape Town. At the time, it was not
Speaker 2: yet operational. It was under construction and it was scheduled
Speaker 2: to come online soon. Right. So, as a guardian described it, quote,
Speaker 2: Coburg was the crown jewel of the apartheid state's energy program.
Speaker 2: Proof of civilization, symbol of technological superiority, monument to permanence
Speaker 2: in a state built on forced labor. Yeah, and thus
Speaker 2: it was also a prize target for the rebels who
Speaker 2: opposed apartheid rule.
Speaker 3: Well, and I questioned any monument to permanence?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that does he hear God laughing? Now?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Back to Rodney. While living at the hippie commune, Rodney,
Speaker 2: who was about twenty nine years old at the time,
Speaker 2: he falls for this young woman named Heather Gray. As
Speaker 2: they say, they fall in love. They begin spending all
Speaker 2: their time together. Their hobbies included organic farming, fencing, dope smoking,
Speaker 2: and plotting the downfall of the apartheid government.
Speaker 3: That's a cute. That's a meat cute, right, that is.
Speaker 2: Totally you can see the potential. I can see the
Speaker 2: poster for the rom com.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: So after Rodney gets a job at the Coburg Nuclear plant,
Speaker 2: he works there for eighteen months and his girlfriend Heather
Speaker 2: suggests that since he's a draftsman for the construction, he should,
Speaker 2: you know, steal the blueprints or like maybe like a
Speaker 2: wiring schematic and then you know, they could use those.
Speaker 3: It'd be amazing, thank you.
Speaker 2: Rodney does exactly that.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: And as he tells it, there was this really fat
Speaker 2: catalog book that identified all the rooms of the nuclear
Speaker 2: power plant, all the wiring and the conduits. So he
Speaker 2: steals that. At first he actually has a guy copy it,
Speaker 2: and then he takes that right.
Speaker 3: But like that's the thing, like could you copy this
Speaker 3: for me? He's why you don't ask questions. It's a
Speaker 3: little above your pay grade, dude, make the copy, basically
Speaker 3: what he does, and then he has it like tucked
Speaker 3: under his shirt and he's.
Speaker 2: Acting doing like the Napoleon pose with his hands in
Speaker 2: his shirt. So at this point he and Heather they
Speaker 2: sneak into Zimbabwe and they try to smuggle these plants
Speaker 2: to a n C operatives that they know, and their
Speaker 2: arrival of course catches the attention of a zimbabwe And spy.
Speaker 2: So this guy, Jeremy Brickhill, he was a fellow white rebel.
Speaker 2: He was also working against the apartheid South African governments.
Speaker 2: Because Brickhill he had deserted from the Rhodesian Army to
Speaker 2: enlist with the Gorilla Zimbabwean Army. So he becomes then
Speaker 2: the director of ZEBRA, which is like the armed wing
Speaker 2: of the Zimbabwean Liberation Army. So he becomes like a
Speaker 2: high muckety mucky in the rebel army. And so as
Speaker 2: he's essentially the spy master, right, So as the spy master,
Speaker 2: Brickhill has this network of spies working for him. One
Speaker 2: of his mini spies tells him about this hippie couple
Speaker 2: who've just shown up in Zimbabwe and they claim they
Speaker 2: have blueprints for South Africa's new nuclear power plant and
Speaker 2: they want to hand them over to the A and C.
Speaker 2: Brick Hill says, I want to meet these hippies for myself,
Speaker 2: right exactly, No this point, it's early on in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one in brick Hill. He gets invited to a
Speaker 2: party at the home where one of his spies is
Speaker 2: hosting Rodney and Heather. They're staying with the spy. He
Speaker 2: pretends to be just another party guest, so the clock
Speaker 2: keeps going. The parties to rocking, and they run out
Speaker 2: of beer, right, so brick Hill suggests, let's make a
Speaker 2: beer run and he asks Rodney to drive you and
Speaker 2: me brother. Now, once they're out on the road alone
Speaker 2: in the bush in the dark, brick Hill confesses that
Speaker 2: he is an officer of the Zimbabwe and Liberation Forces.
Speaker 2: He knows about the blueprints for the South African nuclear
Speaker 2: power plan, and he wants to know who the hell
Speaker 2: Rodney is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So keep in mind Rodney has been partying, so
Speaker 2: he's drunk. He now has a spy master a grilling him,
Speaker 2: and when brick Hill starts questioning him, Rodney wrongly assumes
Speaker 2: that the spy master is accusing him of being a
Speaker 2: spy for South Africa, which he may or may not,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: So yeah, he's probably thinking, are you trying to set
Speaker 3: us up with this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly so, because it's just the story is too
Speaker 2: good to be true. He's also former military for South Africa.
Speaker 2: You know he's.
Speaker 3: Right there. I wouldn't trust it him thinking he's put
Speaker 3: wrong information in this book to set us up.
Speaker 2: That's a good read.
Speaker 3: You can't trust anyone, Sarin.
Speaker 2: No, you and I both say that all the time
Speaker 2: for each other.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: We don't even trust her anybody.
Speaker 3: I say it all the time because it's true.
Speaker 2: Well, at this point Rodney, he gets pissed. He says
Speaker 2: he's no spy for those apartheid pigs, and then he
Speaker 2: steers the car off the bush road and he aims
Speaker 2: the car to tree and he shouts, you don't believe me,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kill us both.
Speaker 3: He's like, I have been in a gnarly accident and
Speaker 3: I lived. I'll try try it again. I'll do anything
Speaker 3: twice roll them.
Speaker 2: So, of course Rodney doesn't really want to kill them both,
Speaker 2: so eventually slams on the brakes and the cars like
Speaker 2: screeches to a halt and it stops just short of
Speaker 2: the tree. Like Rodney you.
Speaker 3: Wild, wow his city. The hole in his head was
Speaker 3: a buzzy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, getting the field.
Speaker 3: I wanted a friend, so.
Speaker 2: The spymaster Brickhill. He recalled that moment for the Guardian
Speaker 2: and he said, I kind of broke the ice. I
Speaker 2: said something like, welcome to the struggle, comrade. Now let's
Speaker 2: just go and buy a beer.
Speaker 3: That's a great icebreaker. Next time I met like some
Speaker 3: sort of like conference meeting, like let's do an icebreak,
Speaker 3: and like, everybody, get in the car.
Speaker 2: You don't believe me, I'm gonna kill us all. Come.
Speaker 2: So Rodney's willingness to die and take Brickhill with him
Speaker 2: proves himself that it convinces brick Hill that Rodney is
Speaker 2: indeed down for the cause. Yeah, so brick Hill tells
Speaker 2: the Guardian later on years later, he was obviously crazy,
Speaker 2: but he was also genuine. So now Rodney is officially
Speaker 2: a rebel spy. And although Rodney has previously been in,
Speaker 2: as they said, the South African Army, he still needs
Speaker 2: raining as a guerrilla fighter. So brick Hill has him
Speaker 2: and had there both go through months of training and
Speaker 2: spycraft and basic gorilla tactics, and they both learn about
Speaker 2: secret communication and how to resist interrogation, how to perform
Speaker 2: like counter surveillance, how to escape and evade, all the
Speaker 2: stuff you'd imagine, just total spy school, and if necessary,
Speaker 2: how to.
Speaker 3: Kill okay during these.
Speaker 2: About that, so brick Hill he earns Rodney's trust also
Speaker 2: during the same time, such that Rodney eventually hands over
Speaker 2: the soul and blueprints because so far they've only said
Speaker 2: we have so he now hands them over and then
Speaker 2: he doesn't hear anything back from brick Hill for months.
Speaker 2: He always get what they want, then get their fingers
Speaker 2: on them blueprints. As Rodney tells it, he disappeared with
Speaker 2: it for about four months, and then the startup date
Speaker 2: for Coburg was getting closer, and I thought, at least
Speaker 2: they'd speak to me if something was going to happen.
Speaker 2: So I raised the alarm with Jeremy to say, if
Speaker 2: they're gonna do something has to happen now, because that
Speaker 2: startup date was I think in like October of eighty two.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, let me know if you're going to do something,
Speaker 3: so I call in right get out of here now.
Speaker 2: The reason why Jeremy Brickhill had gone radio silent was
Speaker 2: he'd sent the blueprints to the Soviets to confirm they
Speaker 2: were ruined dear gun, and then they had the East
Speaker 2: German nuclear scientists to corroborate, which they do, and then
Speaker 2: the Soviets confirmed, Okay, the plans are legit. After that,
Speaker 2: the A and C rebels decide, okay, we can fully
Speaker 2: trust this bike ridingp smoking, commune twelling, white hippie kid
Speaker 2: who teaches fencing with all of our rebel you know,
Speaker 2: plants and leaders, because like he could be the risk
Speaker 2: that breaks down the whole thing. Right, So they tell Rodney, okay,
Speaker 2: you're our new undercover operative.
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, they're not just like shipping this
Speaker 3: DHL putting it right. So they've got like Alexi, like
Speaker 3: in a fur hat, who's taking it from one place
Speaker 3: to the next.
Speaker 2: You follow these blueprints, you can get a huge network
Speaker 2: of you follow.
Speaker 3: The blueprints on the map, and it looks like the
Speaker 3: Lost Artanes probably more like family circus. Yes, And that
Speaker 3: kid goes all, yeah, that's why, that's what's going on
Speaker 3: in my head.
Speaker 2: I love it. It's perfect. So once the the ANC
Speaker 2: rebels tell Rodney he's going to be their man, they
Speaker 2: also tell him he's going to be the one to
Speaker 2: carry out the planned attack. Oh yeah, Roddy didn't expect that.
Speaker 2: He's like, here's the plan. Do you guys tell me
Speaker 2: when not to show up to work? They're like, no,
Speaker 2: we got you one better. Brother.
Speaker 3: That's my least favorite thing is because like I don't
Speaker 3: know if you know this, but I'm kind of an
Speaker 3: idea factory. Yes, you are really good at coming up
Speaker 3: with ideas, but I'm really good at coming up with
Speaker 3: ideas that other people.
Speaker 2: Should I should have to complete.
Speaker 3: And I hate when I come up with a brilliant
Speaker 3: idea and then it's like, go ahead and do it, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: No completion.
Speaker 3: No, that's not ww it works. I am the oracle
Speaker 3: on the top of the hill you listen me to.
Speaker 3: But anyway, that's I feel him, I relate. I'm figuring
Speaker 3: this is a very relatable connect with fencing exactly, driving
Speaker 3: cars into ditches, you.
Speaker 2: Know, threatening Zimbabwe and spy master, I'm gonna take you
Speaker 2: with me. So at this point, Rodney's super reluctant to
Speaker 2: blow up a nuclear power plant and all by himself
Speaker 2: as his first mission as a spy. But Rodney eventually agrees.
Speaker 2: He's like, you know what I thought about it, I'm
Speaker 2: going to do it. Has taught me how to focus
Speaker 2: and to react, That's really what he says. He's like, oh,
Speaker 2: fencing taught me how to handle this. Moment. So next day, okay,
Speaker 2: time for you to meet your handler. So in August
Speaker 2: of eighty one, the spy Master Brickell invites Rodney to
Speaker 2: swing by his house and that's where he meets Mac Maharaj.
Speaker 2: Now Mac is this veteran undercover operative. He would be like,
Speaker 2: when they make the movie of this great part, you
Speaker 2: know you could get an oscar, right, Oh, I.
Speaker 3: Look forward to your casting. At the end of this conversation,
Speaker 3: Oh I wish, oh see, maybe I can come up
Speaker 3: with something.
Speaker 2: So Mike Maharaj, he's a brit and he'd been born
Speaker 2: in Newcastle. His parents were both Indian, and Mack had
Speaker 2: joined up with the anti apartheid rebels way back in
Speaker 2: the early sixties. He gets subsequently arrested and sixty four
Speaker 2: for sabotage. He ends up doing a twelve year sentence
Speaker 2: on Robin Island, oh, which, as you know, the infamous
Speaker 2: South African prison where Nelson Mandela is locked out. So Mac,
Speaker 2: he's deep in the game. Like, in fact, he's deeper
Speaker 2: than deep because when Mac Maharaj gets released from Robin Island,
Speaker 2: he's the man who sneaks out Nelson Mandela's autobiography that
Speaker 2: he's secretly written in prison, like super tiny script hidden
Speaker 2: into like books and spines of stuff. Yeah. So Mac
Speaker 2: is deeply committed to the struggle. Yeah, and he's proven
Speaker 2: it right, like I mean veteran and so he's trusted
Speaker 2: by the utmost authority in the ANC, Nelson Mandela. And
Speaker 2: naturally Mac also harbors his own suspicions about this white
Speaker 2: hippie kid with the stolen nuclear secret. So it also
Speaker 2: seems too good to be true. So the kid also
Speaker 2: he's former South African military. This really sticks in the
Speaker 2: car at he teaches fencing for a living. Who teaches
Speaker 2: fencing for a living?
Speaker 3: A good question?
Speaker 2: So Mac he started, He's like, only vet this Rodney.
Speaker 2: So he asked Rodney about the scar on his forehead.
Speaker 2: He's like, deep scar, you got go on, what's up
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 5: Is?
Speaker 2: Rodney tells him about the military vehicle that nearly killed him,
Speaker 2: and then Rodney's whole story of surviving his own stupidity
Speaker 2: and then also crawling out from under the truck with
Speaker 2: the burning oil. It impresses Macmaharaj. He's like, that's some
Speaker 2: rebel action right there. Or, as Mack later told The Guardian,
Speaker 2: all that background suggested that there was a person from
Speaker 2: a privileged community, but quite a person to do things
Speaker 2: his own way, not to be bound by rules created
Speaker 2: by the system. Right. So Mac also ascertains that Rodney
Speaker 2: is the perfect undercover operative. As Mac puts it, he
Speaker 2: was a daggas smoke, a hippie, a commune living guy.
Speaker 2: And I can see he is one loose cannon. But
Speaker 2: this is the guy. He has left no trail, he's
Speaker 2: got no political background, so you can send him back.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By the way, Elizabeth, there's two things in there
Speaker 2: that I loved. One Dagga is a South African slang
Speaker 2: for pot. That, yeah, I love. I love learning new
Speaker 2: terms for drugs. And then also he's one loose cannon.
Speaker 3: That's also this guy is like not only his handler,
Speaker 3: but he's like the serge in the station.
Speaker 2: Yes, the police captain, bagine your gun.
Speaker 3: You're you're a real cowboy.
Speaker 2: So at this point Mac he's an astute judge of character,
Speaker 2: and Mac concludes that Heather Gray, the girlfriend, will be
Speaker 2: integral to this secret operation. She'd already been deeply involved
Speaker 2: in the anti Vietnam War movement. She'd taken part in
Speaker 2: the sixty eight student revolts back in the UK, and
Speaker 2: her commitment to the anti apartheid movement came first before his,
Speaker 2: and it seemed far more unwavering, even though she's not
Speaker 2: steering cars into trees like she's a Really.
Speaker 3: That wasn't in pursuit of a cause, No, no nerve foolishness.
Speaker 2: So macmrage also senses that out of the two of them,
Speaker 2: Heather is definitely going to be the stronger operative as
Speaker 2: a spy and working to together. Though they would be
Speaker 2: the perfect team for this operation, however, they still plan
Speaker 2: to have it be Rodney who alone will plant the
Speaker 2: bombs that they all hope will blow up the nuclear
Speaker 2: power plant. Yeah, Elizabeth, you may be thinking, why does
Speaker 2: the ANC trust Rodney with this really high stakes operation?
Speaker 3: I am thinking I'm wondering that, right, It's a great question.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The reason why the rebels decide to not only
Speaker 2: trust Rodney to carry off this important mission, but they
Speaker 2: think he has a better chance of success than any
Speaker 2: of their team of trained rebels for one simple reason.
Speaker 2: Rodney is white.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's I think no one will.
Speaker 2: Watch him suspiciously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, he gets away with whatever.
Speaker 2: As the Guardian summarized it, and I quote the value
Speaker 2: of an operative who could re enter the plant with
Speaker 2: a face that looked like it belonged there was greater
Speaker 2: than any unit cutting through a fence from outside. Why
Speaker 2: send a unit when you already had a ghost?
Speaker 3: Yeah right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 2: After they spend eighteen months in Zimbabwe learning to be
Speaker 2: rebels and saboteurs and going through spy training while pretending
Speaker 2: that they're basically like on a holiday, like enjoying safaris
Speaker 2: and whatnot, Rodney and had their return to South Africa.
Speaker 2: Now they're ready to carry out their secret mission. And
Speaker 2: now we should also kind of bring up any moral
Speaker 2: question raised by what they plan to do, Like they
Speaker 2: plan to blow up a nuclear facility. Sure, is that
Speaker 2: really the right thing to do? Is that putting people
Speaker 2: at health risk?
Speaker 3: And you know, I yeah, I'm really struck as you're
Speaker 3: telling the story about these are people who could just
Speaker 3: go and live their lives and have privilege, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: they're middle class, they wouldn't have to yeah, doing whatever
Speaker 3: they want, and they could teach fencing anywhere. And you
Speaker 3: see these people that have a conviction so strong for
Speaker 3: the welfare and the liberation of other.
Speaker 2: Others not themselves.
Speaker 3: That's really incredible, you know, so that you have high
Speaker 3: high stakes for this, but they're more concerned with ending
Speaker 3: exploitation of people and resources and they can't just id
Speaker 3: lee by. And I applaud that because I think most
Speaker 3: of us, you know, we can complain about things, and
Speaker 3: we can say things are terrible, but how.
Speaker 2: Many of us are willing to go blow up a
Speaker 2: new lie when it comes.
Speaker 3: Down to it. Yeah, you're gonna do it. And like,
Speaker 3: you know, and I think too that you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want anyone to be killed or suffered.
Speaker 2: No, no, obviously.
Speaker 3: But you know, things are different in certain situations.
Speaker 2: In wartime, you raise interest, it raises different questions than
Speaker 2: it really does Monday to Sunday lifetime.
Speaker 3: It really does.
Speaker 2: As Rodney he recalled in an interview his interview with
Speaker 2: South Africanhistory dot org about like these moral questions, and
Speaker 2: he said, worried me was Heather and I getting caught,
Speaker 2: of course killing people by accident. We tried not to
Speaker 2: kill anybody. Civilians shouldn't die. They are not the military
Speaker 2: or police. But this had been thoroughly discussed with the ANC.
Speaker 2: So they're like, look, I'm a rebel dotty, I gotta
Speaker 2: go through with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Rodney and the rebels from the ANC, they
Speaker 2: don't want there to be any possible nuclear disaster once
Speaker 2: they hit the power plant, and they don't want victims
Speaker 2: of their violence, which means they can't hit the facility
Speaker 2: once the nuclear fuel rods are in place.
Speaker 3: That's the thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very tight timeline of when they can blow up
Speaker 2: the Coburg nuclear facility. And at this point Rodney's given
Speaker 2: a new handler, a man who will guide him through
Speaker 2: these final key steps of their plan sabotage. His handler
Speaker 2: is a young Muslim man from an Indian township just
Speaker 2: outside of Johannesburg or joe Burg. The twenty seven year
Speaker 2: old science graduate's name is Abu Bakar Ishmael and his
Speaker 2: code name is Rashid'll be calling him Rashid. The Guardian
Speaker 2: described him as quiet, methodical and obsessive about detail. So
Speaker 2: what Rodney recalls of his new handler was quote, Rashid
Speaker 2: was different from Mac, much more cautious and not so bubbly.
Speaker 2: But he helped a hell of a lot. The job
Speaker 2: couldn't have happened without him.
Speaker 3: Don't think you really want bubbly at that stage, right want,
Speaker 3: I want steely, meticulous focus.
Speaker 2: Fifteen minutes of how have you been in the.
Speaker 3: Beginning like getting distracted and telling silly stories.
Speaker 2: So ristied, he helped Rodney with the intangibles of their operation.
Speaker 2: As Rodney tells it, we started off with the security issues,
Speaker 2: the moral issues, and the need for a legend, a cover,
Speaker 2: going through extensively how to relate with family and friends.
Speaker 2: First of all, excuses of why we were going back
Speaker 2: to South Africa. I use the excuse that I couldn't
Speaker 2: pay maintenance for my daughter with Zimbabwean currency. There was
Speaker 2: a clampdown on exporting of currency which convinced most people.
Speaker 2: So they use the instability of Zimbabwean money as their
Speaker 2: cover for all their strange trips and back and forth
Speaker 2: over the border. In June of eighty two, Rodney goes
Speaker 2: back to South Africa and he waits for the right
Speaker 2: moment to now sabotage of the nuclear power plant that
Speaker 2: he's gone back to working for. Yeah, importantly, he goes
Speaker 2: back to the power plant on the six month contract,
Speaker 2: so he has an end date that he has to
Speaker 2: also get all this done by because he's also going
Speaker 2: to be part of this manic rush to finish construction,
Speaker 2: so there's gonna be all this buzzing about, so he'll
Speaker 2: be very trusted as well. So he really should work
Speaker 2: as long as they hit the timelines. Yeah, So the
Speaker 2: South African government they need all the help they can
Speaker 2: get to finish their timeline because the power plan is
Speaker 2: being hyped in the local news. They're all excited about
Speaker 2: international news. It's gonna be the first in Africa, and
Speaker 2: so hitting the construction deadline is now like a point
Speaker 2: of pride and also propaganda. Meanwhile, Rodney he updates his
Speaker 2: handler Rashid on the nuclear power plants progress and the
Speaker 2: success of his cover story. As Rodney tells it, by
Speaker 2: the middle of June eighty two, I was back in
Speaker 2: Cape Town the second meeting with Rashid the first weekend
Speaker 2: in July. I reported that I was due to start
Speaker 2: work at Coburg and that so far the legend and
Speaker 2: cover we had discussed at the previous meeting was holding up.
Speaker 2: So he's getting good at the spycraft.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: For the next few months, Rodney, Heather and Rashid they
Speaker 2: continue playing their little cloak and dagger games, and as
Speaker 2: they work in preparation for this ultra top secret spy
Speaker 2: guy operation, Rodney would typically meet or contact Rashid while
Speaker 2: he's in Mozambique and outside of the surveillance of the
Speaker 2: South African spies. Now, as The Guardian reported, when he
Speaker 2: needed to reach Rashid and Mozambique, he sent a telegram
Speaker 2: disguised as a horse racing bet. They had assigned numbers
Speaker 2: to each location inside the plant, so a message about
Speaker 2: backing number three was really a message about a reactor.
Speaker 2: They went through everything, targets, escape routes. How Wilkinson and
Speaker 2: Gray were holding up under the strain.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: Now when he says strain, Rodney was going through it
Speaker 2: as a spy and saboteur. Yeah, Rodney tells the Guardy.
Speaker 2: And he was like usually pretty much just terrified, And
Speaker 2: he said often I had serious doubts and a paralyzing
Speaker 2: weakness and fear. I started to hallucinate, almost suspecting I
Speaker 2: was being followed. So as this deadline's drawing nearer and near,
Speaker 2: this team of amateur saboteurs, they're prepping their final plans.
Speaker 2: It's November of eighty two. They meet with Rashid for
Speaker 2: the final time. He gives them a map that shows
Speaker 2: where his men have hidden four limpet minds given to
Speaker 2: the anc rebels by the Soviet Union, and Rodney reads
Speaker 2: the map, he memorizes it and then he eats the map.
Speaker 3: Oh talking real spy, Yeah, seriously.
Speaker 2: Once they believe they aren't being followed, he and Heather
Speaker 2: they drive out into the desert. They retrieve the four mines.
Speaker 2: They use the memorized map they easily locate them. Then
Speaker 2: they secret them away in like these wine boxes they
Speaker 2: have in the back of their car, and they figure
Speaker 2: no one's going to look under the wine and it works.
Speaker 2: They make it back home at the police searching or
Speaker 2: finding any minds. Once home, they assemble the mines and
Speaker 2: they bury them then on a beach just south of
Speaker 2: the Cobourg Nuclear power plant where they can easily get
Speaker 2: to them, and then they wait for the fateful day
Speaker 2: to come. At this point, anxiously waiting, Heather secretly reaches
Speaker 2: out to Jeremy Brickhill, the zimbabwe And spymaster. She uses,
Speaker 2: like all their spy training to contact them. She tells
Speaker 2: him she's worried about Rodney. Remember I said he's going
Speaker 2: through it. Yeah, Well, apparently he's been drinking heavily. He's
Speaker 2: now acting erratically. He's talking too much, like the people
Speaker 2: that can overhear what he's saying. They're arguing at the
Speaker 2: grocery store. She thinks he might blow it all before
Speaker 2: they blow up all the new powerplant. Brick Hill says, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll get back to you. And so he checks with
Speaker 2: the ANC and if it starts to see if another
Speaker 2: team can be deployed for this mission. They n c
Speaker 2: tell him nope, has to be Rodney, yeah. So then
Speaker 2: brick Hill contacts Heathany tells her has to be Rodney, yeah.
Speaker 2: And so in case though, he's like, you know, in
Speaker 2: case he blows it all up, why don't you come
Speaker 2: to Zimbabwe and you can lay low with me and
Speaker 2: the others. And so Heather takes off for Zimbabwe. She
Speaker 2: leaves Rodney alone to fa. So now it's Rodney or bust.
Speaker 2: He's cracking up and the date's quickly coming. Elizabeth, let's
Speaker 2: check the vibe here for a second. My man Rodney
Speaker 2: is drinking too much, talking to himself, acting erradically, so
Speaker 2: much so that his girlfriend and partner has to flee
Speaker 2: the country for her own safety and for the safety
Speaker 2: of all the rebels who he can name or contact. Right,
Speaker 2: So let's just say the mood is tense a little bit,
Speaker 2: all right, So let's take a little break, listen to
Speaker 2: some ads, and then when we're back, we'll see if
Speaker 2: Rodney can make it to Kaboom. Back in two and.
Speaker 6: Two and we're back, Eliza, we are back.
Speaker 2: Now, before we get back into it, I need to
Speaker 2: ask you another question. Yeah, what do you know about
Speaker 2: limpet minds?
Speaker 3: Limpet minds?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't know anything until I looked this up.
Speaker 3: Well, all right, so here's the thing about Olympic mind
Speaker 3: You go in huh yeah, and it's full of olympus.
Speaker 2: I knew you would know, so yeah, so let's back up.
Speaker 2: What do you know about limpets?
Speaker 3: So olympit is a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, it's the only thing. It's not like an
Speaker 2: idea or mind. It's also olymp It is also a
Speaker 2: type of aquatic snail, so it's well known for its
Speaker 2: super strong foot what.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know how.
Speaker 2: It is with snails, right, It's all about the question
Speaker 2: of how strong is your foot?
Speaker 3: Sure? I mean that's for anybody, honestly, not just in
Speaker 3: the snail world. But I think I was thinking it
Speaker 3: sounded like an animal. But if it's a mine, I
Speaker 3: was like, all right, so Elizabeth's it's it's probably like
Speaker 3: a stone. So it's not it's a snail.
Speaker 2: It's a snail. And limp its are like muscles or barnacles,
Speaker 2: like they attach themselves to underwater structures. Yeah, they're difficult
Speaker 2: as how to pry off once they're stuck. So the
Speaker 2: foot is how olympet applies suction to whatever surface they're
Speaker 2: attached to. But they also have this super sticky adhesive
Speaker 2: that Olympic secretes it doesn't matter, but this is his
Speaker 2: is really extra suction. So the reason I bring this
Speaker 2: all up is that's where the limpet mind gets its nickname.
Speaker 2: Mine's an explosive. You stick to the thing you want
Speaker 2: to blow up.
Speaker 3: I'm quick, I can pick these things.
Speaker 2: I had to looked through all this.
Speaker 3: Up limpet mind.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting, all my World War two stuff. This
Speaker 2: didn't come from it. Like I said, it's a sticky bomb, right,
Speaker 2: So no, they're not particularly big, these limpet mine. So
Speaker 2: imagine like an explosive that's about the size of, say,
Speaker 2: like a bottle of liquor, not a flask, but like
Speaker 2: a bottle, and instead of a sticky, mucous covered foot
Speaker 2: like a true limpet Olympic mine has a super strong
Speaker 2: magnet that it uses to stick to iron, so you
Speaker 2: to steal, yeah, or nickel plated this.
Speaker 3: They love magnet.
Speaker 2: They did, you called it magnet love. So this is
Speaker 2: where the limpet mind gets tricky though. The limpet mind
Speaker 2: that Rodney is given by the NC has a timed fuse,
Speaker 2: which means he trips a switch, he pulls a pin
Speaker 2: and that starts this countdown and once the clock strike zero, kaboomah.
Speaker 2: But once that pin is pulled, there's no turning back.
Speaker 2: And that's not the tricky part. The tricky part is
Speaker 2: the timers, aka the fuse. They're known to be faulty,
Speaker 2: which means sometimes the explosive can just blow up real quick,
Speaker 2: like while you're still placing it, like right in your face.
Speaker 3: So I love that we just keep using these things.
Speaker 3: It's known to be faulty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they're like, look, we've got a lot of
Speaker 2: people in Russia. That's not our problem. Getting the bomb
Speaker 2: there is set. So this particular limpet mind, Rodney is
Speaker 2: given by the nc Rebels, as you pointed out, was
Speaker 2: given to them by the Soviets. And the Soviets also
Speaker 2: they made this limpet mind packed with this extra special
Speaker 2: chemical called thermite.
Speaker 3: Oh that doesn't sound Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, for those unfamiliar with nine to eleven conspiracies, thermite
Speaker 2: is an incendiary mixture that can cut through steel beams
Speaker 2: any heavy steel construction. You got, that's where you heard it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the arm, river tank or nuclear power facilities. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't need to tell you this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but thermite is a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum powder.
Speaker 2: So together, when ignited, the mixture burns at about twenty
Speaker 2: two hundred degrees celsius or about four thousand degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 3: It's hot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if you pour water on it, on burning thermite,
Speaker 2: the water doesn't put it out. Instead, it makes a
Speaker 2: thermite burn hotter. It's like thank you for the fuel, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: water makes thermite stronger. So long story short, you really
Speaker 2: really don't ever ever want to be around where thermite
Speaker 2: is burning because you're in a bag of water.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Basically, So, the Soviets, as I said, they've packed these
Speaker 2: limpet nines with thermite, and like I'm talking like a
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving turkey, so you could not get any more thermite
Speaker 2: in there, right, And then they got this tricky fuse
Speaker 2: you're supposed to pull, and we've got Rodney, the amateur saboteur.
Speaker 3: Who's like hearing voices.
Speaker 2: In the morning. Yeah. So the main reason the anti
Speaker 2: rebels want all this thermite was that the explosions of
Speaker 2: these limpet minds would spread fire through the whole nuclear
Speaker 2: reactor facility, and then the thermite would ignite and burn
Speaker 2: the wires. Then now all of a sudden, you got
Speaker 2: like a network of flames and burn down the whole facility.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So at this point, uh, based on the study of
Speaker 2: the blueprints of the nuclear reactor, Rodney's handler Rashid, decides
Speaker 2: Rodney should place one limpet mine on each of the
Speaker 2: two nuclear reactors and then attach the other two limpet
Speaker 2: mines under each of the control rooms for the nuclear reactors. Okay, right,
Speaker 2: because that's where all the wires are. You got all
Speaker 2: these like cables and wiring and condos.
Speaker 3: That's where Homer Simpson sits.
Speaker 2: Exactly, so under Homer's desk. So hopefully this thermite then
Speaker 2: spreads fire burns down everything. So the fuses for the
Speaker 2: limpet minds are set for twenty four hours, so that
Speaker 2: gives Rodney time to get free of the buildings if
Speaker 2: it doesn't blow up in it.
Speaker 3: Say, twenty four hours to get out of the building.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean he knows it's also he sets on
Speaker 2: like a Friday don't will be in the building working.
Speaker 2: But he's also slow and exactly he's like, what was
Speaker 2: I trying to do? Where's my pen? So Rodney, he's
Speaker 2: supposed to place them, come back, arm them, pulling the
Speaker 2: pins with the four mines while not getting caught. That's
Speaker 2: the plan. Sneak in, place them, then sneak back to them,
Speaker 2: pull the pins whenever you want at go time, and
Speaker 2: boom boom boom, next day kaboom. So, Elizabeth, if you
Speaker 2: were to lay odds on my man, amateur spy guy,
Speaker 2: Rodney Wilkinson pulling off his plandestine operation, what are the
Speaker 2: odds you've given? Not good bub I'm giving them seven
Speaker 2: to three against.
Speaker 3: Against.
Speaker 2: If you got ten chances seven.
Speaker 3: Times, it ain't that happens.
Speaker 2: Of course, you have to understand I know some things
Speaker 2: you don't know, like all the numerous layers of security
Speaker 2: that stand between Rodney and him pulling off this operation.
Speaker 3: This isn't just like an empty construction he can just
Speaker 3: stroll on through.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's not just like steel superstructured let me just
Speaker 2: call him. No, this is a you know, at least
Speaker 2: in terms of security, operational nuclear facility. So they got
Speaker 2: all that you would expect. Like, so when he drives
Speaker 2: up to the Coburg, the nuclear facility in his car
Speaker 2: for work, there's always a vehicle search standard operating.
Speaker 3: Procedure like the mirror.
Speaker 2: Sick totally you've driven onto a military base.
Speaker 3: I see I have.
Speaker 2: So once he parks his car, then he has to
Speaker 2: walk to the complex. He has to pass through a
Speaker 2: pedestrian security checkpoint gate one that has both a guard
Speaker 2: and a guard dog. Right, So if Rodney gets through
Speaker 2: those two layers of security, he still has to manage
Speaker 2: to sneak the four limpet mines into the building. And
Speaker 2: then keep in mind they're the size of a bottle
Speaker 2: of liquor, so he's trying to smuggle it in basically
Speaker 2: four full sized bottles of Jack Daniels. And if he
Speaker 2: pulls that off and smuggles the mines into the building,
Speaker 2: The third layer of security is the changing room, because
Speaker 2: that's where all the workers and the nuclear facility people.
Speaker 2: They undress stripped down to their birthday suits and then
Speaker 2: put on these like a you know paper coveralls, like
Speaker 2: you know tiex suit that everyone wears at the nuclear
Speaker 2: reactor complex. Sow are you going to stick a Jack
Speaker 2: Daniel's bottle in the UK? You couldn't put that in
Speaker 2: a body hole like that. So to sneak the limpet
Speaker 2: mines into the facility, Rodney brings them hidden into his
Speaker 2: car one at a time. He creates the smuggler's gap
Speaker 2: behind the dashboard of his renault. He sneaks the first
Speaker 2: limp and mine into the facility on a Saturday. The
Speaker 2: date is December eleventh. South African government is obviously behind
Speaker 2: schedule and construction because they wanted to be done by October.
Speaker 2: So but like the Death Star, it's almost fully operational.
Speaker 2: So Rodney he takes the limpet mind to his office.
Speaker 2: He locks it in his desk drawer.
Speaker 3: Success, so he got it through in front of it.
Speaker 2: No, no, that's between his desk and going into the
Speaker 2: nuclear reactor. So he gets through the gate where they
Speaker 2: check the car. Then he gets through the gate where
Speaker 2: you walk in.
Speaker 7: He gets to his office and then puts it in
Speaker 7: his desk and sticks it on the exactly so yeah,
Speaker 7: so basically typically, like for instance, on Monday, the following Monday,
Speaker 7: he pulls the same move.
Speaker 2: I'll walk you through it. He hides the limpet mine
Speaker 2: in the smuggler's gap of the dashboard of his car.
Speaker 2: Once he parks his car, he transfers the limp and
Speaker 2: mind to his shoulder bag. Then he walks to his
Speaker 2: office where he transfers that mind to his desk drawer
Speaker 2: locks it. He does the same thing on Tuesday, December fourteenth.
Speaker 2: Now he only has one more limpant mind to go.
Speaker 2: But on Wednesday he wakes up he's got a bad feeling. Yeah, bad,
Speaker 2: bad field, bad juju, Elizabeth. Fives are off. So Rodney
Speaker 2: doesn't bring a limp and mind to work that day. No,
Speaker 2: bring your mind to work that day. The next day, Thursday,
Speaker 2: December sixteenth, which coincidentally is a national Africaner holiday, the
Speaker 2: day of the vow. I know that you get curious
Speaker 2: about these things. I looked it up, Elizabeth. It marks
Speaker 2: the day back in December of eighteen thirty eight when
Speaker 2: four hundred and seventy four voor Trekkers were engaged in
Speaker 2: the Battle of Blood River and they were losing like badly.
Speaker 2: They were vastly outnumbered by Zulu warriors, like sixteen thousand
Speaker 2: to four hundred and sixty four. Yeah, and so they
Speaker 2: make this vow to God, if the Almighty will save
Speaker 2: their like lily white behind they fur, will forever keep
Speaker 2: this day holy. They say, this is our new Sabbath,
Speaker 2: an annual day of remembrance of God and how He
Speaker 2: spared us and from I guess, I'm like dying and
Speaker 2: going to heaven. Look, it's not my holiday. I don't
Speaker 2: get all the particulars. But now it's not even a
Speaker 2: holiday anymore because nineteen ninety four, after apart I had ended,
Speaker 2: they're like, we're renaming that. That's now a day of reconciliation. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he change the holiday. It's very Romans anyway. On that day, Rodney,
Speaker 2: he smuggles in the fourth final limpet mine and locks
Speaker 2: it in his office drawer. Now he just needs to
Speaker 2: place them inside the nuclear reactor fit part of the facility. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then he has to come back and arm them all.
Speaker 2: Boom boombo. Yeah, and not have them explode in his face.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: So for one of the nuclear reactors, Reactor one, Rodney
Speaker 2: has a bit of a challenge. He can't sneak the
Speaker 2: mind through the changing room before he walks to the reactor.
Speaker 2: So he has to place the mine in this gap
Speaker 2: in like a tunnel where the conduits pass through the wall,
Speaker 2: and then he'll have to retrieve the mind from the
Speaker 2: other side. I see, right, So that adds a layer
Speaker 2: of complication and risks. Right. So, now, first to get
Speaker 2: any of these mines from his office desk drawer into
Speaker 2: the nuclear facility, as I said, they got to pass
Speaker 2: through the pedestrian security checkpoints that are everywhere. Then he's
Speaker 2: got to get you know, past the guard the guard dog.
Speaker 2: Then he's got to get the limpet mind, which is
Speaker 2: under his shirt and he's just holding it snug against
Speaker 2: his body with his belt and to keep it from falling,
Speaker 2: he'll walk around with his hands in his pants pockets,
Speaker 2: sort of like holding the mind from below. And that's
Speaker 2: like his best plan. He's like, I just gripped yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: So now, Elizabeth, what sort of hats are we laying
Speaker 2: the man Roddy pulls off this operation.
Speaker 7: Oh, it's getting worse, climbing right nine to one against
Speaker 7: now exactly okay, But as a counterpoint, you do have
Speaker 7: to always remember what Han Solo once said, never tell
Speaker 7: me the odds.
Speaker 3: Oh he always said, I know that one too.
Speaker 2: So the big day comes Friday, December seventeenth, nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: My man Rodney doesn't chicken out. He drives to work
Speaker 2: in is Rayo, he parks. He doesn't have to sneak
Speaker 2: a limp and mine into work that day because they're
Speaker 2: already all set, ready to be smuggled into the nuclear
Speaker 2: reactor and attached magnetically. Now today's the day. But rather
Speaker 2: than me tell you about Elizabeth, close your eyes. I
Speaker 2: want you to pick're it. It's Friday, December seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, the day you've dreamed of it, trained for.
Speaker 2: It's finally here. It's also your last day of work
Speaker 2: at the Coburg Nuclear Facility. Because you are Rodney Wilkinson.
Speaker 2: At the moment you're sitting at your desk psyching yourself up.
Speaker 2: Everything will go find, Everything will go find, you tell
Speaker 2: yourself on repeat, but your stomach doesn't seem to believe you.
Speaker 2: The butterflies in your gut are doing the rumba. You
Speaker 2: take a calming breath and then slide open your desk drawer.
Speaker 2: You take out a limpet mine. You push back your
Speaker 2: desk drawer and stand up. You secret the limpet mine
Speaker 2: against your stomach and then tighten the belt to make
Speaker 2: it secure to go time. With your hands dug into
Speaker 2: your pockets, you walk down the hallway, the one that
Speaker 2: leads from your office to the nuclear reactors. You see
Speaker 2: the pedestrian checkpoint ahead of you. You've waited for the
Speaker 2: lull at the end of the guard shift, hoping he
Speaker 2: might be a little less attentive, perhaps even a bit drowsy. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the rhythm of your nervous steps is all that you
Speaker 2: focus on. At the guard house, the guard barely looks up,
Speaker 2: and the guard dog does the same. He gives you
Speaker 2: a quick once over, and then the guard dog looks away.
Speaker 2: You must pass through the security checkpoint on the other side.
Speaker 2: You let out a sigh of relief. You continue onto
Speaker 2: the nuclear facility. You've memorized the blueprints so you know
Speaker 2: exactly where to go and how to get there again,
Speaker 2: the rhythm of your footfalls calms your racing mind. You
Speaker 2: go into the dressing room. No one is around. You
Speaker 2: quickly strip down, hiding the limpet Mind and your clothing.
Speaker 2: You pull on your protective coveralls, and then you hide
Speaker 2: the limpet mine underneath bet for there you walk into
Speaker 2: the section of the facility that houses the nuclear reactors.
Speaker 2: A few workers buzz about, You give friendly nods and
Speaker 2: continue on your way. Once you're convinced no one is
Speaker 2: watching you or can see you, you tuck away and
Speaker 2: crawl under the control room for reactor too. You pull
Speaker 2: out the limpet Mind, You attach it with the powerful magnet.
Speaker 2: You place it among the cables that run underneath the
Speaker 2: control room. One mindset, three to go. For the next hour,
Speaker 2: you repeat those same steps. You walk back to your desk.
Speaker 2: You hide the limp mine on your person. Then you
Speaker 2: walk through the pedestrian security checkpoint, pass the guard and
Speaker 2: the guard dog. No reaction from either one. Then you
Speaker 2: change into coverall. You smuggle olymp mind into the nuclear
Speaker 2: reactor facility, and you carefully place each one magnetically. The
Speaker 2: dog never ever moves, the guard never looks twice. No
Speaker 2: one ever stops you. No one asks you a single question,
Speaker 2: No one is suspicious of your repeated trips into the
Speaker 2: high security area that houses the nuclear reactors. There's just
Speaker 2: the sounds of your footfalls there to calm your mind.
Speaker 2: When it's time to place the last of the four
Speaker 2: limpit minds, you collect the one you already tucked away
Speaker 2: and hidden the gap of the conduit. It's there you
Speaker 2: secret that last mine on your person and you head
Speaker 2: for reactor number one. This time a guard gives you
Speaker 2: the once over, and he doesn't look away. Instead, he
Speaker 2: eyes you warily. He seems suspicious, so you pause, You
Speaker 2: pat yourself down and like you've forgotten something, and you
Speaker 2: tell him you'll be back in a half hour. Turn
Speaker 2: around and walk back the other direction, But once out
Speaker 2: of sight, you change your path and head over to
Speaker 2: reactor number two. There you place the final mind. With
Speaker 2: all the minds placed, you head back to your office.
Speaker 2: Once safely inside, you pull out your lunch and you
Speaker 2: eat it, or you try to eat it. You take
Speaker 2: mindless bites. This is purely a cover more spycraft, because
Speaker 2: you're not done after lunch. You immediately need to go
Speaker 2: back and pull the pins to sets of fuses for
Speaker 2: all four limpid minds, and sometime after lunch you decide
Speaker 2: it's go time. You repeat the same steps. You walk
Speaker 2: back into the nuclear facility, pass the guard the guard dog.
Speaker 2: Once inside, you retrace your steps and go back to
Speaker 2: each mine. You're half certain someone will catch you, but
Speaker 2: you go anyway. At the first mind, your hands shake,
Speaker 2: your breathing is ragged rough. You recall how the A
Speaker 2: and C Rebels warned you that with limpet mines, there's
Speaker 2: always that risk that when you pull the pin, the
Speaker 2: chemical fuse will missfire and set off the mine right
Speaker 2: in your face. You calm yourself with a few short,
Speaker 2: even breaths, and then you pull the pin of the fuse.
Speaker 2: Nothing happens. Now three more minds to go. With each mind,
Speaker 2: you repeat the same little ritual. If you call me breasts,
Speaker 2: you close your eyes, you pull the pin. The fuse
Speaker 2: of the second mind works. You walk over to the
Speaker 2: third mind, pull the pin. That fusee also work. Same
Speaker 2: for the fourth. You're still alive and still in one piece.
Speaker 2: You turn and walk out. This time, your footfalls feel joyous.
Speaker 2: They feel like liberation. You walk back to your office
Speaker 2: whistling and wait for the end of the day. Since
Speaker 2: it's your last day at work. Someone invites you to
Speaker 2: join your workmates for a farewell drink, and you accept.
Speaker 2: Just after five pm when you shift in, you walk
Speaker 2: out of the Coburg Nuclear Facility for the last time,
Speaker 2: and later at the pub you raise your glass and
Speaker 2: offer a cheer to your workmates. No one has any
Speaker 2: idea which you're really drinking too, but you do. You've
Speaker 2: done it, So there you go, Elizabeth, my man, Rodney
Speaker 2: came through. So now as long as the minds go off,
Speaker 2: yea solid.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So well, Rodney's raising his glass, bending the elbow with
Speaker 2: his work friends. He plays it super cool. When asked
Speaker 2: what's next for him, Rodney tells his buddies he's going
Speaker 2: off to see his girlfriend. He's going back home to England.
Speaker 2: Naturally that's a lie, yeah, because you know Heather is
Speaker 2: actually laying low with ANC rebels and members of the
Speaker 2: Zimbabwe and Liberation Force.
Speaker 3: You can't really explain that part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds weird. So where's your girlfriend? Oh? Man?
Speaker 2: I told you about long story. Anyway, His work friends
Speaker 2: cheer for Rodney's final day and they're for theirs and
Speaker 2: they wish him well and his travels back to jolly
Speaker 2: old England and to see Heather. After a few work beers,
Speaker 2: Rodney hops on his bicycle and rides out of town.
Speaker 2: He go rides to his friend's house and she then
Speaker 2: drives him to the Cape Town International Airport with the
Speaker 2: bike in the back of her car. Because that's Rodney's luggage. Yes, nice,
Speaker 2: he's got like that in like a rucksack. So Rodney
Speaker 2: asks his friend to get rid of his work boots
Speaker 2: and his coveralls. He's like, I'm pretty certain I left
Speaker 2: princes where like they were implanted the mines. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to connect you to what I did.
Speaker 2: So she's like, I'll get rid of the boots and
Speaker 2: the coveralls. Yeah, no questions asked. So in Johannesburg, once
Speaker 2: he lands, his sister picks him up and puts the
Speaker 2: bike in the back of her car. And then once
Speaker 2: they're alone in the car, Rodney just breaks. He starts crying.
Speaker 2: His sister seeing him, crist she starts crying. She asked
Speaker 2: what he's done? What's the matter. Rodney says he can't
Speaker 2: tell her what he's done. She asked, did you kill someone?
Speaker 2: He's like, no, no, I don't think so. Yeah, He's like,
Speaker 2: I don't think so and she's like, uh wait, wait
Speaker 2: what you did? Is it crime or is it politics?
Speaker 2: Because she knows her brother. Yeah, and he tells his
Speaker 2: sister it was politics. So she's like, okay, I'm okay
Speaker 2: with it. They both grow quiet. She starts the car.
Speaker 2: They drive to the border of Swaziland now a Swatini. So,
Speaker 2: after serious effort, they find some barbed wire fencing that
Speaker 2: is the border between the two countries. His sister drops
Speaker 2: him off, and Rodney crosses the border through like a
Speaker 2: hole in the barbed wire fence with his little bike.
Speaker 2: He lays down in a stream, fully clothed, as like
Speaker 2: the locals laugh at this crazy white man floating in
Speaker 2: the water, fully dressed, and he's just like, I made it. Oh,
Speaker 2: thank good. Is the relief he's feeling.
Speaker 3: Sure, all that adrenaline war off and then right, I
Speaker 3: like the thing is it's political? Well yeah, it's also crime.
Speaker 3: Run That's okay.
Speaker 2: Exactly, that's okay. Now. The next day, Saturday, December eighteenth,
Speaker 2: Rodney hops on a bus travels to his pickup point,
Speaker 2: the place where his handle or Rashid said someone would
Speaker 2: grab him and bring him in. When he gets there,
Speaker 2: he's using their like coated system for phone calls and
Speaker 2: no one comes to get him. Oh, as Rodney told
Speaker 2: The Guardian, poy did I wait? I was pissed off.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: After some difficulty with the phone due to the fact
Speaker 2: that like a payphone ringing in Mozambique sounds nearly the
Speaker 2: same as like the busy tone in South Africa, Rodney
Speaker 2: finally gets it sorted out. He talks to Rashid and
Speaker 2: then he tells him where he is and to send
Speaker 2: someone to get him. Right. I'm nervous, I'm alone, Like,
Speaker 2: you got to send somebody. I think people are following me.
Speaker 2: Rashid is like like the He's like the wolf in
Speaker 2: pulp fiction. He's like, I got that handled right. So meanwhile,
Speaker 2: that same Saturday, back at the Coburg Nuclear facility, the
Speaker 2: first mine explodes at three twenty three pm, the next
Speaker 2: limp at mine explodes at eight forty pm, the third
Speaker 2: mine goes off at eleven twenty four pm, and the
Speaker 2: fourth and final mind explodes at two fifty three am
Speaker 2: on Sunday morning.
Speaker 3: Oh those are long.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the fuses were all jacked up. They were
Speaker 2: not consistent at all. They're all supposed to be pretty
Speaker 2: much the same. Anyway, all four mines they go off
Speaker 2: after hours, will know what is there working?
Speaker 3: Three o'clock? What time do they get off work?
Speaker 2: No one gets hurt. Oh they they're really leaving like
Speaker 2: at five pm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but did you say the first one is at
Speaker 3: like three pm.
Speaker 2: Three twenty three pm on a Saturday.
Speaker 3: Oh on a set.
Speaker 2: No one's working on Saturday. Okay, got it. So no
Speaker 2: one's working there on the weekend. Even they're on like
Speaker 2: a construction rush. They're like, you stuken Saturdays and Sundays
Speaker 2: off and we don't have the second crew. So the
Speaker 2: nuclear reactors, well you know at this point you're gonna
Speaker 2: need two new nuclear reactors. Yeah, they've destroyed them. Right,
Speaker 2: the third mite did the trick?
Speaker 3: Wow? Really right? Not becase we were betting against him.
Speaker 2: I know he pulls it off, so not bad through
Speaker 2: pot smoking, bike riding, commune living, fencing instructor turned international
Speaker 2: spy guy. So what happens after the bombs go a boom?
Speaker 2: Great question.
Speaker 3: It's like I destroyed power station and then his friends
Speaker 3: are like, so that's why Robert Palmer went solo. I
Speaker 3: have been sitting on the line for so long since
Speaker 3: she started talking about power station.
Speaker 2: It's just being it was really good.
Speaker 3: I feel like Rodney the release like the so I
Speaker 3: have to go floating the river.
Speaker 2: On Sunday, December nineteenth, Rodney links up with his handler
Speaker 2: Rasheet in Mozambique and there he learns the limpet mines
Speaker 2: destroyed the nuclear facility. And to celebrate, the two men
Speaker 2: drink whiskey and they eat Soviet fish and they just
Speaker 2: like party down.
Speaker 3: I guess totally.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the South African nuclear program just got pushed back
Speaker 2: a year and a half at least. Yeah, And due
Speaker 2: to cultural prejudice the South African investigators, they never identify
Speaker 2: Rodney as the bomber because they're so convinced that anc
Speaker 2: rebels could never pull off such a high tech operation.
Speaker 2: So instead they think it's more likely that the French
Speaker 2: contractors building the facility did it.
Speaker 3: Oh blame the French always.
Speaker 2: Went in doubt, but in French Now. After laying the
Speaker 2: load for two weeks, Rodney and Heather they fly back
Speaker 2: to the UK, where they eventually get married. They raise
Speaker 2: a family. They remain safe and sound until the couple
Speaker 2: finally returns to South Africa in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, one year.
Speaker 2: After the apartheid government starts to fall and Nelson mandelegates
Speaker 2: released from prison in nineteen ninety Yeah, and then in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, one year after apartheid officially ends in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Male and Guardian, South Africa's version of The New
Speaker 2: York Times publishes this account of the daring bombing of
Speaker 2: the nuclear actors and identifies Rodney Wilkinson and Heather Gray
Speaker 2: as the operatives who pulled it off. Wow, and by
Speaker 2: then it's safe to publish the trire. So that Elizabeth
Speaker 2: is the ridiculously heroic tale of how my man Rodney
Speaker 2: Wilkinson humbled the apartheid South African government and helped basically
Speaker 2: like puncture their cloak of supremacy, rights and inevitability. Right, So,
Speaker 2: what's a ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 3: Man? You know Rodney was running his mouth, he's talking
Speaker 3: too much in public. Yeah, but look at how tight
Speaker 3: lipt he was after this.
Speaker 2: Nobody knew nobody on death. The pub knew about it
Speaker 2: when he got into his cups, you know.
Speaker 3: Or maybe they did and they're like good on you.
Speaker 3: I don't know, They're like, you know what I don't
Speaker 3: want to place on city like we're not going to.
Speaker 2: He stayed with the n C. He got like a
Speaker 2: job working, like you know, they kept him around. But
Speaker 2: it's interesting the ANC doesn't hype this mission a lot.
Speaker 2: You want to hear a.
Speaker 3: Lot, I think because I think, you know, their legacy
Speaker 3: is not so much tied with those kind of yeah,
Speaker 3: the terrorists, I guess for lack of activities.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Western press would definitely label this a
Speaker 2: terrorist operation.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and there's you know, there's an old shin
Speaker 3: Fein t shirt of like one man's terrorist is another
Speaker 3: man's fruit fighter, which is like not limited to shin Fain,
Speaker 3: but like, uh, you know, I think that that's something
Speaker 3: that they want to distance themselves from. I would imagine,
Speaker 3: I imagine as well, what's your takeaway?
Speaker 2: My ridiculous takeaway here is uh, I definitely will always
Speaker 2: trust a bike riding fencing instructor from now on. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: I need at least those two. You can't just be one.
Speaker 2: I don't know, defense.
Speaker 3: That's solid.
Speaker 2: So you're in the boot for a talk back.
Speaker 3: You know, I am.
Speaker 2: Pretty a d what you got for us? Oh, oh
Speaker 2: my god, leg.
Speaker 8: A ridiculous Crime fam. My name is Kelly. I'm from
Speaker 8: Colorado and I'm an original rude dude from day one.
Speaker 8: I was listening to your pigeon episode and you were
Speaker 8: talking about sexy pigeons and where you could find them.
Speaker 8: Now I could think about was animaniacs and the good pigeons.
Speaker 8: So there's some sexy pigeons for you there. And also
Speaker 8: on your lego episode, they just changed it to one
Speaker 8: hundred plus because David Attenborough turned one hundred, so that
Speaker 8: way David could keep playing with legos. Love it, have
Speaker 8: a good one.
Speaker 2: Oh my god for the legend David Attenborough.
Speaker 3: No exactly, if anyone deserves it, Yeah, legs, I love it.
Speaker 3: Thank you for that, doup.
Speaker 2: Double up well. As always, you can find us all
Speaker 2: online at Ridiculous Crime on Instagram and that's where we
Speaker 2: have pictures of this and other episodes. If you want
Speaker 2: to see what things look like, go there. And then
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Speaker 2: your email. Dear producer d and assistant Terry. Now, oh,
Speaker 2: I forgot. We have the iHeart app where you can
Speaker 2: do your talk back, so go there download that and
Speaker 2: maybe you get to hear your voice here. We'd love
Speaker 2: to hear it, so please do it and there you go.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening, and we will catch you next crime.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime. It's hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett,
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