Escape From the Smoky Mountains

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Here are a few things we know about Eric Robert Rudolph: He's a 31-year-old Army vet; he's never held a steady job or opened a bank account, and he has dabbled at the fringes of right-wing extremism. He's invariably described as handsome and polite by those who know him; he appears to enjoy swords-and-sorcery films; and (inevitably), he's "a loner."

What we and the FBI don't know is where Rudolph is, which is why he ascended to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list today, a mysterious figure sought in connection with the Atlanta Olympic bombing and a subsequent Alabama abortion-clinic bombing .

Three months ago the FBI believed his capture was imminent. Today his trail is as cold as a misty winter's morning in his native Smoky Mountains. Even the report that a truck registered to Rudolph had run a Colorado roadblock on April Fool's Day hasn't changed the feds' belief that Rudolph could just as easily be holed up under a rock (or in an empty holiday house) in the harsh mountain forests of Cherokee County, S.C., as he could be basking on a California beach. "Early on the FBI was very confident of capturing him," says TIME Atlanta bureau chief Sylvester Monroe. "They were talking as if they'd have their man within days. Today they basically don't have a clue where Rudolph might be."

When the New Woman All Women clinic was bombed . . .(continued)