Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

“It’s okay, Vanessa, you’re safe. Police are here.” Kate looked at her and repeated, “I know this is hard to understand, but you’re safe. You’re with me now.”

Vanessa blinked several times then Kate reached for her phone.

“I have a little girl, Grace. You’re her aunt.”

Kate showed her a picture.

“She looks like you,” Vanessa said.

“That’s funny because I think she looks like you.”

Kate smiled, glanced at the FBI agent and continued. “Okay, Vanessa, police will need you to help them. They’ll need you to remember everything and to be strong, just like you were when you helped that girl get away.”

Kate went home but spent most of the next several days at the hospital.

In that time, Vanessa talked privately in her room with FBI agents from the task force, telling them everything she could about her time in captivity.

For her part, Kate, in a press conference held at the FBI’s Field Office in Manhattan, continued offering condolences to the families of Zurrn’s victims, her thanks for the avalanche of messages supporting her sister and a plea for the public to help find Zurrn. And at Reeka’s insistence, Kate also spoke with Newslead reporters for an exclusive feature on the rescue.

The hunt for Zurrn, the “most wanted man in America,” remained one of the nation’s leading news stories. Across the country and in Canada, the press dug deep at the tentacles of the case that reached into their communities.

Speculation on Zurrn’s whereabouts, his life, his crimes and motive, fueled debate, theories and rumors on national network discussion panels. Zurrn’s evocation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case, his near-successful attempt to broadcast a murder-in-progress live online, was chilling. His ability to outsmart detectives while being, what one pundit called, “an invisible chameleon,” made Sorin Zurrn one of the most intelligent and dangerous killers of the past century, according to a strident expert on one cable news talk show.

The FBI, state police in New Jersey and New York, Newark police and the NYPD, continued taking every precaution. They’d mounted an ongoing police presence at Kate’s building, and Kate was routinely driven by law enforcement from Manhattan to her hospital visits.

Newslead, the State of New Jersey and the FBI’s Office for Victim Assistance, insured that Vanessa was given the best medical care at the hospital. She received treatment from a psychiatrist expert in helping people with their recovery after being long-term hostages or prisoners.

In the first days, Vanessa’s sessions had gone well. The doctor had insisted that she not see or read news reports of her case, so that she could process the enormity of her experience at her own pace without creating additional stress. The psychiatrist saw Kate as a therapeutic source of comfort for Vanessa and encouraged her hospital visits. Kate brought photos of their early life together and they soon began talking about how they would build Vanessa’s new life.

Little by little the healing had begun.

Over those days, Kate received a message from Erich-Happy you got your sister back. But she thought it odd that she hadn’t heard from Ed Brennan.

Then on the seventh day after Vanessa’s rescue, Kate was at home helping Grace with her homework when her phone rang.

“Kate, this is Brennan.”

“Ed, I was wondering why I haven’t heard from you.”

“We’ve been working and we’ve got something.”

“What is it?”

“Nobody outside the task force knows what I’m going to tell you, but after all you and your sister have been through, I owe you.”

“Tell me.”

“You can’t breathe a word to anyone. We put in a lot of hard work on this.”

“I swear.”

“We’ve got him.”

“What, when, where?”

“The other side of the country, we’re locked on to him. It’ll be all over and you’ll be hearing about it real soon.”

Near Miles City, Montana

The wind rolled in waves over the vast grasslands, tumbling into the coulees and raking the cottonwood grove where Brennan lay hidden from view.

Face clenched behind mounted, high-powered binoculars, he studied the ranch house and outbuildings rising from the plain over a mile away.

This is where Sorin Zurrn’s going to be today.

Through his earpiece Brennan listened to whispered spurts of encrypted transmissions over walkie-talkies.

No movement or activity.

The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team controlled the inner perimeter.

They’d set up lookout posts while sharpshooters and assault team members were concealed in spots surrounding the house. They were backed up by an FBI unit from Salt Lake City and tactical teams from across Montana. They held positions at the outer perimeter, where Brennan and other task force members waited.

Flying above them, silent and unseen, a small remotely controlled surveillance drone sent live images of the isolated region to the FBI’s command post four miles away in a building where the Montana Department of Transportation kept snowplows.

Brennan had been at his perimeter position for ten hours now, confident that the investigation was solid.

This is Zurrn’s property. He’ll be here. Everything fits.

They’d connected all the dots going back to Carl Nelson’s coworker Mark Rupp, who’d glimpsed Nelson looking at a real estate page and making notes more than a year ago. It turned out Nelson had used an absent coworker’s computer, which had been sold later as surplus with other equipment to an out-of-state office supply warehouse.

It was a challenge, but the FBI moved fast and located the unit in Beltsville, Maryland. Examining it, they recovered and extracted the information, like browser history, that led to a real estate sale in Custer County, Montana. Executing warrants, the FBI determined that Zurrn had used a network of aliases and numbered companies to purchase the property under the name Wallace Cordell. When the FBI showed Zurrn’s photos to the agent on the deal she was incredulous. “Yes, that sort of looks like him! But Wallace Cordell had red hair and thick sideburns. My Lord! You’re telling me this is the man on the news?”

The agent said the deal had closed a few months ago and all that was left was for Cordell/Zurrn to take possession very soon. In fact, she’d already left the keys for him in a lockbox. The agent gave the FBI the date Cordell was to arrive to take possession.

“He assured me he’d be there at any time on that date. I was going to drop by after he called me to congratulate him and pick up the lockbox.”

The sprawling property was in a windswept region of farms and ranches. It had been owned by a doomsday cult. Records and plans obtained by the FBI showed that the group had constructed a well-maintained underground bunker, “with a large number of sealable, dorm-like chambers,” to prepare for a predicted Armageddon in 2012. But when the prophesy failed, followers left and the ranch was put up for sale.

It was ideal for Zurrn.

In the days before Zurrn’s possession date, the FBI executed warrants to search it and confirm it was empty, that no victims or prisoners were being held there. They also checked it for hidden cameras or security measures Zurrn may have surreptitiously installed.

Then the FBI questioned Hub Arness, who owned the neighboring property. Hub, who’d always kept an eye on the place, said there’d been no recent activity. But a couple years back there was some regular trouble. “These ex-cult types still trekked out there and sometimes vandalized the property,” Hub said.

Zurrn’s return date and the task force’s swift investigation led to the execution of more warrants and their arrest strategy. The Hostage Rescue Team flew from Quantico, Virginia, and, so not to attract attention, landed about 165 miles away at the Gillette-Campbell County Airport in Gillette, Wyoming.