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Paracord. A canvas tarp. A magnesium fire starter. A satellite phone. A GPS. A flashlight. Individual packets of antibiotic ointment. Ditto for sterile wipes. Ibuprofen. Antibiotic capsules. Power bars. A cook pot. Cups. Canteens. Half a dozen Meals Ready to Eat. The MREs were bulky, but foraging off the land was time-consuming. Besides, once he secured the woman, he’d have to feed her something substantial. He had no way of knowing what condition she’d be in, other than to be certain that the ordeal she’d experienced, hard on any civilian, would have been especially hard on a spoiled city girl.

He had his own weapons.

A Hechkler & Koch MP7. STUD operatives had access to an almost endless variety of weapons, but he’d learned to trust the MP7 for its accuracy and firepower. His SIG-SAUER P226 pistol and the SOG-TAC knife that had been with him from the start, through his deployment as a SEAL and then as a STUD.

Everything else would be waiting for him in a backpack on the chopper in the Keys.

Wilde had argued that what he was taking wasn’t sufficient.

“How about a tent? A backup pistol? A machete? Surely you’ll

want flares. Anti-venom.”

Tanner said yes to the flares and considered the machete. Whether you called the stuff in San Escobal a jungle or a rain forest, it could be tough to get through. A machete would undoubtedly be useful, but it would add to what was already a bigger load of stuff than he liked. He’d be moving fast, first to find the woman and then to get her out.

STUDs learned to make-do with what was at hand.

Still, he’d agreed to the machete. He knew that it might be the difference between moving through the heavy growth quickly or getting trapped in a morass of vines, branches and trees.

As for taking someone else with him…

Both he and Blake struck that down. Fast.

He’d have satphone access to Chay, who would be his contact, but getting into San Escobal and getting the woman out was black ops, a lone-wolf mission…Call it what you wanted, it all came down to the same thing. The job called for getting in fast and getting out the same way.

He would be on his own, and he liked it that way.

Still, Wilde wasn’t convinced.

“I damn well hope you’re up to this, Akecheta,” he’d said as Tanner had prepared to leave.

Captain Blake had slapped Tanner on the back.

“He is,” he’d told the general. “If anybody can pull this off, Johnny, it’s Tanner.”

The pilot’s voice buzzed through his headphones.

“Fifteen minutes to touchdown, Lieutenant.”

“Roger that,” Tanner said, and took a long, steadying breath.

Right on time. He’d have a few hours to pore over maps, check out the satellite photos he’d requested, even though little would be visible on the ground because of the lushness of the land itself.

He’d made a tough decision about when to go in.

Dropping out of a chopper at night was not the recommended approach, especially into an area of dense vegetation, but zero dark thirty was the best time to get in without being noticed. The drop would be made in a clearing halfway between the place where the kidnapping had taken place and the town where the ransom was to be paid. Tanner had worked the numbers over and over, and he was sure that was as far as the woman and her captors would have gotten by now.

As for Blake’s reassurance to the general that he could pull this off…

Tanner sure as hell hoped he was right.

* * *

San Escobal, deep in the rainforest, 8 p.m., Eastern time:

Alessandra Bellini sat gagged and bound in a darkness so complete she couldn’t even see her captors, who lay passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth not more than ten feet away.

Alessandra shuddered.