As soon as word was received that the vehicle was on the pike, an all-points alarm was sent, and the nearest vehicles were diverted to the priority target. During the twenty miles and twenty minutes it took the target vehicle to reach the Valley Forge area, the pattern of the stalk had been established. An unmarked vehicle containing two officers had caught up at high speed, slowed, and drifted close enough to confirm the identification, and had then dropped inconspicuously back into position four hundred yards behind the Mercury. A standard patrol car followed approximately a mile behind the unmarked car. As quickly as possible other patrol cars were stationed at the exists ahead, one at each exit, each one in contact with the unmarked car tailing the target vehicle.
The procedure to be followed should the target vehicle attempt to leave the turnpike had been established. It would move over to the exit lane. The unmarked car would increase speed so as to exit immediately behind it. The patrol car a mile back would be alerted and would increase speed also, so as to exit as close as possible without creating alarm. The patrol car waiting outside the gates would be alerted. As soon as the target car had committed itself to one particular exit, the waiting car would move across the front of it and block it. The attendant would drop to the floor of the booth. The unmarked car would block any attempt to back away. The rear car would plug traffic at the exit ramp to keep the public away from the party.
Though it was not anticipated that the target vehicle would leave the pike until much later, this eventuality had to be covered with great care.
Pursuers and pursued rolled at a steady sixty miles an hour through the hot late afternoon toward the shadows of dusk gathering far to the east. Other vehicles moved steadily along with them, vacationers, salesmen, people heading for an evening in Philadelphia. A few cars caught up with them and moved slowly by, made cautious by the patrol car to the rear which they had recently edged by, eyes flicking back and forth from the highway to the speedometer.
At Central Control men watched the big electric map and talked in low tones. It was particularly important that there should be no news break. The Mercury had a radio. So far the lid had been kept on. And any news break which hinted at what was going on would bring a thousand idiots in their cars onto the pike, hoping to see blood.
The tanned young man is driving. Eyeglasses is in front beside him. Hernandez and the girl are in back. The girl seems to be asleep. It is a four-door vehicle.
The group of men made an executive decision. They checked with the New Jersey Turnpike. The interchange between pikes was an inefficient and potentially dangerous place to try to take them. The same tail car would follow. The Jersey people said they would be all ready and waiting by the time the guest arrived. The tail car was informed.
At 6:35 the target vehicle transferred at the interchange to the New Jersey Turnpike. The remote tail dropped off and a new patrol car picked up its function. It contained three officers, and heavier armament.
The break came at 7:18 when the Mercury slowed, moved over to the exit lane and entered the service area. With the unmarked tail car a hundred feet behind, it moved past the parking lot and the Howard Johnson’s to the banks of gas pumps.
The tail car reported. Control said, “Can you take them there?”
“It isn’t too good. Lots of cars at the pumps. Kids running around, but... hold it! The driver got out and the one with glasses is behind the wheel. The one who got out is pointing over toward the waiting area beyond the pumps. Looks like they’ll park it here. Now it looks good.”
“You got Car 33 with you, and we can back you up with 17 in... four minutes, and 28 in six minutes.”
“Put 17 down there ahead on the grass, ready to plug access back onto the pike just in case. We’ll take the driver right now.”
Kirby Stassen went first to the men’s room, from there to the cigarette machine, from there to the crowded order counter for take-outs where, When his turn came, he ordered four hamburgers and four coffees to go. When they were ready, the girl put them on the cardboard tray and put it on the counter. As Stassen reached out with both hands to pick it up, a big hand reached from the left and another from the right, and the cuffs snapped down snugly, with metallic efficiency, onto his wrists. He tensed for a moment, looking neither to left nor to right, staring incredulously at his wrists, then let all the air out of his lungs in a long, gentle sigh. The men who held the ends of the two sets of cuffs yanked his arms down to his sides. The few people who saw it gasped and murmured.
They walked him to the manager’s office, searched him roughly and thoroughly, handcuffed his wrists behind him and left him there under the cold eye of an enormous trooper in uniform.
When Nanette Koslov came clacking out of the women’s room in her slacks and high heels, hips swinging loosely, sullen hair bouncing against the nape of her neck, two large men moved in from the side and grabbed her, each one clamping one hand on her wrist and the other on her upper arm. Her scream silenced all the clatter. With her eyes gone mad, with foam at the corners of her mouth, she bucked and spasmed with such strength that the two strong men could barely hold her, and one of them, twisted off balance, went down to one knee. But they gained control, and half ran her into the private office. They held her arms straight out while the dining-room hostess, agreeable to this extra duty, searched her, found the knife, placed it on the corner of the desk. Nanette Koslov was still taut, waiting, savage as an animal, so they cuffed her by wrists and ankles to a heavy office chair.
Hernandez and Golden waited in the car. It was too far away from the main building for them to have heard Nan’s animal screamings. The long minutes passed. Golden got out of the car and stared toward the building. The dying sun glinted orange against the lenses of his glasses. He shrugged and started toward the building at a half trot. A man who had been stooped low, came angling out from behind a parked car at a dead run. Before joining the State Police he’d had three pro seasons with the Steelers. It was like hitting a rag doll with a hurtling sack of bricks. Golden went out and stayed out for twenty minutes. The glasses skittered forty feet across the asphalt without breaking. When the ex-defensive guard was halfway to his target, a man who had crawled into position suddenly rose up and filled the open window beside Hernandez with his big shoulders, his face wearing an expression of hard joy, rock-steady hand aiming the barrel of the .38 at the center of Hernandez’ face.
“Just move a little bit,” the officer pleaded in a half-whisper. “Move a finger, an eyeball. Move anything.”
Hernandez sat like a statue. A man opened the other door and got in. The wrists were so large the handcuffs were set at the last notch. After they got him out of the car, lumbering, docile, dazed, they found, wedged into the seat, a .45 Colt automatic pistol, army issue, with a full clip and a round in the chamber. It later proved to have been in the glove compartment of the stolen vehicle.
They were loaded in patrol cars and taken off the turnpike, jailed on suspicion of murder, printed, photographed, identified, given prison issue denim, and locked in isolation cells.
The finding of Helen Wister had been on the radio and television newscasts since seven. That story was vastly fattened by news of the capture released in time to hit the nine o’clock news.
The Stassens would have had the news before nine, had they been home. They were at a large cocktail and buffet dinner party. At nine they were just beginning to eat. Somebody turned on the television set. It was ignored until somebody yelled, “Hey! Listen to this!”