Waagner, who escaped from the DeWitt County Jail in Clinton, Ill., in February and has eluded capture since, says he's been driving across the country stalking abortion clinics, assembling a cache of weapons and compiling dossiers on clinic staff in order "to kill as many of them as I can." Clayton made his threats on the "Clayton Waagner Message Board," hosted by the antiabortion Army of God.

"Pray," he asks his supporters, "that every one I kill causes a hundred to quit."

Waagner's threat has galvanized abortion providers, clinic defenders and law enforcement officials into a state of high alert, while Army of God leaders are cheering Waagner on and calling on pro-lifers to give him shelter.

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"Go Waagner, go!" cheered Army of God "chaplain" Rev. Michael Bray on the message board (which has now been shut down without explanation). Bray hails the fugitive as a "fellow who goes for the gusto," and urges antiabortion activists to help Waagner continue "giving the slip to federal agents" by hiding him in their homes.

"If someone doesn't catch him soon, he's going to kill someone," says an alarmed Ann Glazier, director of clinic security for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "He meets all the criteria," she continued. "He has weapons; he has money; he is clear about what he wants to do; and he has a means of getting from one location to another."

"It's a tough case," says senior inspector Geoff Shank of the U.S. Marshals Service, the division of the Justice Department responsible for, among other things, keeping track of federal prisoners. "We arrest people all over the world," Shank observed, "so there is nowhere he can hide. Waagner is a convicted felon who has escaped from prison. And we will pursue him till we get him, no matter how long it takes. Pro-life or pro-choice has nothing to do with it."

Waagner is currently on the U.S. Marshals' Most Wanted List.

At the time of his escape, Waagner, of Kennerdell, Pa., was awaiting sentencing -- 15 years to life -- after his conviction on federal weapons and stolen vehicle charges. Since then, the crafty criminal has repeatedly slipped though the police dragnet, leading cops on a chase while stealing cars and robbing at least one bank. He has apparently recruited accomplices, including an unidentified man who drove the getaway car for the bank stickup last week outside Harrisburg, Pa.

"Thanks to some very generous bank financing" -- an apparent reference to the Harrisburg heist (and, the FBI believes, possibly others), Waagner says he is ensconced in a "very secure safe house" and has assembled "the tools I would need to wage war."

Waagner is far from a populist antihero, merrily thumbing his nose at the cops. His beliefs and plans are more comparable to those of the grimly methodical Timothy McVeigh, the Aryan Republican Army and other violent far-right revolutionaries of the past decade, including, of course, the Army of God, a shadowy, loosely affiliated band of antiabortion terrorists who've taken responsibility for assorted clinic violence. Waagner envisions himself pitted against "the most powerful country in the world" -- a country that views him as a terrorist.

"They're right," he declares. "I am a terrorist. And that's the reason I'm posting this letter."

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