The 408-horsepower Crown Victoria barely breaks a sweat as Billy Smith, a retired Florida Highway Patrol major, taps the accelerator with his patent leather butt-kickers and nudges the squad car past 70 mph. There isn't much traffic on Interstate 10 this late at night, and what traffic there is has gingerly moved to the right lane as the motorcade sweeps past.
Tallahassee is less than 40 minutes away. Smith flicks a switch on the Ford beast, and the light show begins. Red-and- blue flashers mounted almost flush against the rear window click on and off like strip-joint neons. A pair of Highway Patrol Harleys roar a quarter-mile ahead. Two Florida State charter buses and another patrol car bring up the rear.
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