SANCHEZ: For five years, Eric Rudolph hid in this mountainous corner of western North Carolina in an area approximately a half- million acres wide. He had a myriad of hiding places and camps, some of which have still not been found. But through details found in letters and conversations he shared with his mother, we are now able to retrace his steps and we do so with the man who's mission it was to hunt him down. Charles Stone headed the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's anti-terrorism unit and has now co-written a book on "Hunting Eric Rudolph."

CHARLES STONE, FMR. GBI TASK FORCE LEADER: You're talking about a double-canopy forest here, where you have deciduous trees, and then you have -- directly underneath it, you have laurel thickets, mountain laurel thickets that do not lose their leaves.

SANCHEZ: Add to that that he was familiar with this turf.

STONE: Grew up in the area. He loved to play hide and seek in this area. He was a student of survival, escape and resistance in the military.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): Pat Rudolph describes her son's survival not just in terms of skill, but also in terms of dumb luck. Like the time, as he explains in a letter, he stole a truck from Buy-Rite Motors in Murphy, North Carolina, then ran out of gas, and then found himself staring at a police officer.

P. RUDOLPH: It was in the middle of the night, and the police officer came by, and asked him what was wrong. He told him, and he said, oh, don't worry about it, I have gas in my car for when I run out, and you can have that. So, he gave it to him.

SANCHEZ (on camera): The police officer didn't know that he was helping a fugitive who was on the lam.

P. RUDOLPH: Right. Right.

SANCHEZ: According to conversations he had with his mother, Eric Rudolph would climb silos like this one all the way up to the top, and then fill bags with corn and soybean. One night, though, he looked across and he had to hunker down when he suddenly realized, he says, that there were hunters there. And then he looked closer and realized they had a dog, a dog he was convinced, he tells his mother, was going to sniff him out.

P. RUDOLPH: He was hanging inside the silo, and peeking out over the top of the silo, when he heard this crash, you know, like -- and a yelp, down below. And the men that were there started screaming, "the dog, the dog, the dog's been hit." Something's happened to Lil. And they all ran, and he's watching them, and, yes, sure enough, the dog was killed.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): Rudolph is known to have gotten help from just one person while hiding out in these mountains. Family friend and health food store owner George Nordman gave him vitamins and other supplies. But then, he called police. By the time police arrived, Eric Rudolph had fled to wander these mountainous trails, by counting his steps and committing them to memory. That ability alone, and his familiarity with the terrain, leads investigator Charles Stone to conclude he probably did do it alone.

Let me show you how he explained to his mother that he would cross some of these streams and some of these rivers at night. Essentially, with old garbage bags that he would find, and he would use them as weighters.

(voice-over): And when he got to the other side of the Valley River, here in Andrews, North Carolina, he would hit the McDonald's, to devour the uneaten hamburgers that had been thrown into the dumpster. Or he'd dumpster-dive behind the Civic Cinema for leftover popcorn.