Inside the real-life A-Team rescuing Americans from dangerous situations when nobody else will

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.

Bryan Stern (right) and his volunteer organization, Grey Bull Rescue, extracted Terry Gately (middle), an American missionary seized in Kherson, Ukraine, and tortured by Russians for eight days. Stern said the Florida-based group — founded in August 2021 during the Afghanistan withdrawal — has rescued 8,400 people in more than 40 countries. Courtesy of Gray Bull Rescue

“And I am really, really invested in not getting blown up,” Stern, a Queens native, told The Post in an exclusive interview.

After 13 hours at sea, Machado was in Norway and free. But this wasn’t even Grey Bull Rescue’s most dangerous mission. It was, however, their 800th in four years.

The world’s most improbable nonprofit, it’s a volunteer organization that operates somewhere between the fire department and a Tom Clancy novel. Grey Bull Rescue — named for Colonel Arthur “Bull” Simons, the legendary special operations commander who led a failed 1970 POW rescue in Vietnam — is staffed by more than 80 former special ops and intelligence veterans who don’t collect salaries, don’t take government money and have exactly one policy when they deploy: Buy one-way tickets only.

Earlier this month, Grey Bull managed to get Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado out of that country. AFP via Getty Images

Stern got Machado to Oslo, Norway, after sailing 13 hours. JONAS BEEN HENRIKSEN/EPA/Shutterstock

“We don’t come home until they come home,” Stern said. “If I’ve got to stay in f–king Haiti for a month to make that happen, I guess I’m staying in Haiti.”

Since launching in August 2021 during the Afghanistan withdrawal, Grey Bull say they have rescued 8,400 people in more than 40 countries. They’ve completed 12 jailbreaks from Russia, five hostage rescues from Gaza, hurricane evacuations and California wildfire rescues. Their clients have included millionaires and people who can’t afford anything.

“Grey Bull is a true representation of America,” Stern says. “I’ve got black and white operatives, I’ve got men and women. I’ve got hairy, bald, fat, skinny. I’ve got guys with ‘Hillary Clinton for president’ bumper stickers and guys with MAGA tattoos. You name it, we got it.”

Stern (front) and his group rescued John Spor, the nuclear scientist who designed US military laser-guided weapons, making him the “highest value Russian target” after the Ukraine invasion. Gray Bull Rescue

Grey Bull is said to have moved Spor through 30-plus Russian checkpoints using disguises, including old crutches. Gray Bull Rescue

When I mention that this sounds a lot like the A-Team, Stern laughs. “I like to think of myself as Hannibal Smith,” he said, “but really I’m more of a Murdock, to be honest.”

When people seek out Grey Bull, it’s usually because they’ve already exhausted every other option. They’ve called the government, the State Department, the FBI, their senators, their congressmen.

“We’re the last resort,” Stern said. “We’re never the first phone call.”

Which means most people arrive at Grey Bull with a short, brutal education in how hostage bureaucracy works. The government isn’t indifferent. It’s just slow, careful and allergic to promises.

Kirill Alexandrov, a Detroit farmer, was arrested by Russians in Ukraine in April 2022 and tortured for 37 days before Stern extracted him. Courtesy of Gray Bull Rescue

In the case of Terry Gately, an American missionary seized in Kherson, Ukraine, and tortured by Russians for eight days, the State Department’s advice was to surrender to his captors.

Grey Bull did the opposite. Stern’s team mapped an exit, recruited local drivers, and set up a relay of handoffs and safe stops. Gately was moved from checkpoint to checkpoint by that local network, while Grey Bull monitored the route and adjusted on the fly. After more than 50 Russian checkpoints and a last transfer on a remote road, Grey Bull’s extraction team took custody and got him out.

The financial reality is stark. Grey Bull is entirely funded by what Stern refers to as “a few generous donors” (none of which he’ll name) and supported by more than 10,000 individual contributors.

A combat veteran of the US Army and Navy, Queens-born Stern spent much of his career in special operations. Courtesy of Gray Bull Rescue

Still, Stern added, “We have cases right now that we can do, lives that we can save, that we cannot afford. Which sucks.”

The private rescue industry runs on two models. There are membership-based evacuation services like Global Rescue, which has over a million members paying annual fees.

Kidnap-and-ransom insurance-backed crisis response is a $2.3 billion global market projected to reach $4.7 billion by 2034. About 75% of Fortune 500 companies carry K&R insurance, which provides access to elite crisis response consultants who work for firms like Control Risks and Unity Advisory Group.

Desiree Gomez and Mohamad Shokair, who reside in Spartanburg, South Carolina, had traveled to As Suwayda, Syria, with their baby daughter in July, when sectarian fighting broke out between local militias and the military. Stern’s group got them out and brought them home. Courtesy of Gray Bull Rescue

A shoestring nonprofit that fills the gaps where neither government nor insurance-backed systems will operate, Grey Bull is something else entirely.

According to public tax filings, Project Dynamo (Grey Bull’s predecessor, also founded by Stern) had an operating budget of $1.23 million in 2024 and $2.07 million in expenses, putting it at a $1.47 million deficit.

Among Grey Bull’s most audacious rescues is that of Kirillo Alexandrov, a Detroit farmer arrested by Russians in Ukraine in April 2022 and tortured for 37 days. Falsely charged with espionage, he was subjected to mock executions and beatings — “very Gestapo style,” Sterns said — and sentenced to death with no due process.

Earlier this year, Stern helped rescue people stranded by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

In October, Grey Bull helped Americans stranded in Jamaica by Hurricane Melissa get off the island. Courtesy of Gray Bull Rescue

Stern won’t discuss operational details, other than saying his group “broke (Alexandrov) out of jail.” He claims that Russians sent an assassin to kill him during the operation but the foe “didn’t make it.” In Grey Bull’s telling, the operation became an “unsolved crime” inside the Russian system and the group “collected a huge amount of information” which they later shared with US officials.

In December 2023, the Justice Department unsealed war-crimes charges against four Russia-affiliated military personnel tied to the abuse of a US national in Ukraine, the first-ever case brought under the U.S. war crimes statute.

“They didn’t even mention our names,” Stern said, laughing.

Then there’s John Spor, the nuclear scientist who designed US military laser-guided weapons, making him the “highest value Russian target” after the Ukraine invasion. Grey Bull is said to have moved him through 30-plus Russian checkpoints using disguises, including old crutches.

Grey Bull aided in the evacuation of Americans caught in Israel after Oct. 7, 2023. Courtesy of Gray Bull Rescue

“If you ever saw the movie ‘Argo,’ it was pretty much like that,” Stern said. “Just without $60 billion from the CIA backing us.”

After leaving the military, Stern said, he founded Grey Bull Rescue in 2016 to fill the gap he’d seen again and again: Families trapped in crises where official help existed in theory but arrived too late in practice.

During those 13 hours at sea with Machado bobbing, Stern expected they’d talk about democracy, international politics or the future of Venezuela. Instead, they talked about family.

“She hadn’t seen her kids in two years,” he says. “That was the main topic of conversation on the boat, that she was so excited to see her children.”

Moments like that are what the danger is for.

“When our phone rings, the conversations are always horrible,” he said. “No one’s ever called and I’ve thought, ‘oh, that’s not so bad.’”