Former Agent Burke Kagan was either a deranged serial killer or his accomplice, hiding in plain sight.
On the flight to Dawsonville, Richie and I reviewed a PDF that Cassie had emailed. It detailed a series of high-profile cases that Kagan had led at the FBI between 2015 and 2019.
Two abductions involved girls under the age of twelve, and both ended with rescues. A separate investigation brought down a network of operatives selling CSAM, or child sexual abuse material. And Kagan had resolved two international child kidnappings with lives intact.
“Pretty impressive,” Richie said.
I nodded. Was Kagan living a double life: a savior at the Bureau—yet, in private, a dangerous killer? Or had some incident set him off, launched him on a retaliation binge against his employer?
Richie paged back through the document on his laptop. “Who is this son of a bitch?”
“Keep an open mind,” I said.
An hour later we landed and were greeted by a slender white deputy named Odin Filky who drove us to a forested area five minutes away. Filky pulled his squad car off a state highway and slowed under the bough of a large pine tree.
“Assuming you two don’t want anyone seeing my vehicle,” he said, “we gotta hoof it the rest of the way.”
We got out. The gravel road became dirt, and we followed Filky for two hundred yards to a house he described as the staging area. A pale blue Tudor set among the trees.
Inside, Filky introduced us to two cops, a bald white guy and an athletic Black woman. “Zimmer is with SWAT,” Filky said, motioning at the man. “And Suco’s a local lent to us from Merchant Falls, a half hour away. Apparently she’s a helluva shot.”
The two locals wore dark SWAT gear with their last names on patches. Filky pointed to a pile, and Richie and I began strapping on Kevlar.
Suco handed me a pair of Bushnells with night vision and pointed out the window. “To the south,” she said.
A log cabin sat in a clearing. The structure was made of white pine with rustic interlocking corners. The evening air was cold, and a plume of smoke drifted up from the chimney.
“He’s home?”
“Oh yeah,” Zimmer said, lifting a piece of plywood atop the kitchen counter. On the board, he had drawn a diagram of the interior of Kagan’s house with a red Sharpie.
“Burke Kagan’s home is fourteen hundred square feet,” Zimmer said, pointing at the rudimentary sketch. “From what I could see during a quick scout, it’s a one bedroom, one bath.”
Detective Suco leaned in. “Two points of entrance here and here,” she said. “Back door leads to a porch with a pile of firewood, an array of six solar panels laid out aboveground, and two acres of woods. Behind that, it’s county parkland all the way back to the interstate.”
I glanced out the window at the cabin. Then back at the diagram. “Two teams of two,” I said. “Zimmer and Brancato at the back. Suco and I at the front. Mr. Kagan is connected to a series of murders, and the Bureau is feeling some heat on them.”
“You want this by the book,” Suco said.
“To the letter.” I glanced from the locals to Richie. “If anyone has an itchy trigger finger, tell me now and stay here.”
Zimmer looked to Suco and Richie, then back at his floor plan. “The last bit of light dropped over Pine Mountain before you got here,” he said, “so we’re good to go at any time.”
“What about hazards?” I asked, moving through my mental checklist on raids. “Dogs? Family members? Booby traps?”
“Full preraid reconnaissance was not practical,” Zimmer said. “But I got close enough for a dog to start yapping, and none did. From what we understand, Kagan lives alone.”
“Communications?” I asked.
“We have four walkies,” Suco said. “We can use hand signals to get over to the cabin before turning those on.”
“Good.” I turned to Zimmer. “I’ll give one tap on the mic before I knock. You hear me say ‘go’ or tap a second time—you break down the rear.”
This was a particular strategy in disorienting a suspect, especially in a small space. As a perp opens the front door, a rear entrance is kicked in. The suspect turns, hearing the noise. The team at the front takes him down.
When everyone was clear on our approach, Richie found the PDF of the warrant Frank had emailed over. He took out his phone and began a recording app to read aloud the details written on the affidavit. This was a new policy that many branches of law enforcement had adopted, mostly to avoid raiding the wrong home, which happened more times than we liked.
We strapped up. When everyone was ready, I headed north with Detective Suco. Richie turned toward the south with Sergeant Zimmer.
I moved slowly around a hedge of ironwood, weaving west and east of the tree trunks. When we reached a clearing, Suco and I sprinted across an open stretch of twenty yards before coming to a dense grove of pine trees.
We slowed along the side of the cabin, our bodies hidden in the dark.
“Ready?” I mouthed to Suco.
She gave an okay signal with her hand, and I turned on my walkie, tapping once on the mic.
Then I stepped onto the porch and banged on the oak door. Per procedure, I shifted my body to the left of the molding. Behind me, I could hear Suco breathing.
The door swung open. The man standing in front of me was 5′11″ and white.
“FBI,” I said, my hand on my Glock. “Please step outside, sir.”
The man’s eyes moved past me and landed on Suco. He wore a flannel and jeans and had two days’ growth of beard on his face, in a mix of brown and red shades. In his right hand was a Sweetwater 420 beer bottle.
“Are you Burke Kagan?” I hollered.
My right hand was at my waist, equally ready to pull my Glock as to signal the walkie for Zimmer and Richie to bust down the back.
But Kagan just smiled.
“The good ol’ FBI.” He took a swig of his beer. “This isn’t about those office supplies I took with me when I left the Bureau, is it?”