On a Tuesday night earlier this month, Bryan Stern was in a small boat in pitch darkness — somewhere off the coast of Venezuela — navigating 10-foot seas with the most wanted woman in South America.
María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan opposition leader, was being hunted by intelligence officers from her home country as well as, reportedly, Cuba, Russia, Iran and China, along with cartel operatives. Stern, founder of the Tampa-based rescue organization Grey Bull, was personally leading the extraction.
A combat veteran of the US Army and Navy who spent much of his career in special operations, didn’t direct the mission from a safe distance. He joined Machado on the boat because that’s how Grey Bull operates: The boss goes, too.
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