- The discovery of a dead ultimate fighter in The Everglades leads CSI to a case involving extortion and a fight club owned by the Russian mob.
- Dying from stomach stab wounds, Russian extreme fighter Vince Koslov stumbles into Forest service employee Daniel Nash. Koslov bit off a tattoo from his presumed hit target, Russian mob burglar Andrew Brodsky, who is found bled to death but didn't touch the fatal knife. The knife traces to diving equipment salesman Greg Donner, who sold it to Brodsky's girl Cassandra Gray. She falsely confesses to the stabbing, apparently under the duress of a death threat from the Russian mob. Horatio believes that Ivan Sarnoff's fight club is actually a Russian mob killer training program. He finds in the club the blood of corrupt yacht owner Nathan Madden, missing since two years, according to wife Susan. But how does it all tie together?—KGF Vissers
- Florida. Surfboards. Clear waters. Hot chicks in bikinis. An attractive young couple take a walk through the Everglades. As the blaring rock music fades out, the pair begins sucking face. The man then stoops down to check equipment measuring water levels and algae content -- "anything that's contaminating the marsh," he explains.
Suddenly, a blood-soaked man crashes through the brush and collapses. Dead. The woman SCREAMS! This looks like a job for a certain man who wears a certain pair of sunglasses.
Meet Horatio Caine. His future is so bright, he has got to wear shades -- all the time. Frank identifies the body as Vince Koslov. Caine questions Daniel Nash, who works for the parks service and monitors the water content. The witness claims to have never seen Koslov before in the marshes, much less anyone else.
"This place is empty," Daniel says.
"Perfect place for a murder," Caine growls.
YEEE-AHHH! Cue opening credits! Welcome to another glare-filled episode of "CSI: Miami."
Back from an excruciatingly long commercial break, we watch in rapt silence as Ryan and Tara examine the body of Vince Koslov. "Somebody really did a number on his abdomen," Tara observes. The theory: the man was stabbed with a knife more than once. Ryan, meanwhile, explains that Vince was an extreme fighter from Russia who disappeared a few years back. Why does he explain this to Tara? Because we need to know.
Back at the lab, Tara discovers something interesting in the victim's stomach. "That's a tattoo," she says. "He ate human flesh. That's where the blood came from. He took a bite out of someone." Naturally, we're grossed out, but Caine is unfazed. He identifies the tattoo as belonging to the Russian mob. Vince, it would seem, was carrying out a hit on a marked man. When the man fought back, Vince took a bite. Caine, in the meantime, intends to take a bite out of crime. Rimshot, please!
Calleigh and Eric search the marsh. They find a blood trail leading to a body. The man has a bite-sized hole in his neck. The pair also finds a bloody knife. Ultraviolet light reveals that the dead man never touched the knife. So who killed Vince? "We're looking for a third man," Calleigh kindly informs Eric and the audience.
Back at the lab, the knife undergoes a very serious examination montage set to pounding, intensity-building music. The end result: a print yielding the name Greg Donner, who sells diving equipment.
Moments later, Caine visits Donner. The latter admits that he sells the dive knife found at the crime scene. "This one has your fingerprint on it," Caine growls. Donner says he sold the knife just that morning to a smoking hot woman named Cassandra Gray.
Moments later, Caine and Eric approach Gray, who has just bought a ticket to go on vacation (coincidence?). "OK, I did it," she says. "It was me. I killed him." Case closed, right? Think again, rookie. Caine points out that the woman would have never been able to take down a 230-pound trained fighter.
A few words from our sponsors later, Caine and Eric question Gray. Her cell phone is full of calls to Andrew Brodsky, the second victim. The woman seems shocked to discover that her boyfriend was killed by Vince Koslov. Still, she sticks to her figurative guns. "Look, you have my confession," she says. "What else do you want?"
Just one thing, actually. Eric swabs the womans hands. Later, Travers examines the blood and finds tiny shards of glass. Three different types, in fact: One from a restaurant kitchen; one from a broken bottle; and the final from recycled asphalt. "I have to say that that combination seems an awful lot like a city street and not at all like the Everglades," Calleigh says. We have to say that she sounds correct.
Calleigh imagines a scenario in which Gray tripped and crawled down a road. Why would she do that? We're glad we asked. "She's not covering for somebody," Calleigh explains. "She's running from them." Right again, we suspect.
Meanwhile, Caine tells Frank to start checking out Russian-owned fight clubs around town. The top name on the list: Ivan Sarnoff, who looks an awful lot like Patchy from "Lost," but we digress. Not surprisingly, Sarnoff denies even knowing the two victims. Eric then lifts the fighting mat to find dried blood underneath. Ryan takes a scraping. "You are training killers here, aren't you?" Caine growls. Sarnoff asks the investigators to leave.
Back at the lab, we are treated to another montage. The end result: the blood from the fight club belongs to Nathan Madden. "He was reported missing two days ago," Natalia explains.
Caine and Eric visit Susan Madden, who reported her husband missing. The couple live in a yacht on a pier. "We wanted to know why he might be at the club," Caine growls. She doesn't know for sure -- but does explain that her husband got into a verbal tiff with a man named Weller before he disappeared.
"The last thing that he said was that he would never let anyone take our home away from us," she says of her husband. "I'm sorry I can't say anymore."
Luckily, Calleigh has figured it all out herself. Back at the lab, she explains the fruits of her investigative labor to Natalia: a dummy corporation (probably owned by the Russian mob) is strong-arming yacht owners to sell their spots on the pier and then renting those same spots back to them. Madden was the only owner who refused to sell.
Moments later, the cops discover Madden's sport boat grounded on a beach. The boat has arterial spray that matches Andrew Brodsky. One montage of boat searching later, Ryan uses a mirror and a flashlight to identify shoe prints on the carpet inside the boat. Jackpot. Back at the lab, Natalia matches the shoe prints to a pair sold at Greg Donner's supply store. This guy again?
Moments later, Calleigh and Eric question Donner. "It was business," Donner explains. "I didn't have anything against Andrew. He just didn't follow orders." We see a FLASHBACK of Vince, Andrew and Greg in Madden's boat. They come ashore and Vince bites into Andrew's neck. So what happened to Vince?
"Vince was becoming a liability," Greg says. "He lacked subtlety."
We then see a FLASHBACK of Greg turning on Vince, stabbing the pro fighter in the abdomen. Greg refuses to say who ordered the hit. He does, however, that Madden was at the club fighting for his "boat slip." We see a FLASHBACK of Madden getting the unholy hell beaten out of him ... and Greg stealing keys to the boat from the man's sweats.
Caine interviews Gray. "It seems clear that you confessed to us because you thought the mob was going to kill you," he growls. The woman is clearly afraid. Finally, she cracks. In a FLASHBACK, we see Andrew and Gray kissing outside the gym. Both witness a man throwing a body into a dumpster. Andrew knows the man.
Andrew pushes Gray to the asphalt (glass shards!) and threatens her life for seeing what she saw. Relenting (awww, he really DOES love her!), he pushes her away. "Get as far away as you can," Andrew says in the flashback. "If they see you, I'm dead."
Caine introduces Gray to an agent from the witness protection program. She argues that the Russians will never give up. "Neither do I," Caine growls.
Calleigh and Eric arrive at the fight club to see a trash truck emptying dumpsters. Eric climbs onto the truck and quickly discovers a body in the back of the vehicle. It's Nathan Madden ... beaten to a bloody pulp. Eric dusts the body for prints.
One super-exciting montage later, we discover that the prints belong to none other than Ivan Sarnoff. Caine and Ryan question Sarnoff. The fight boss says that he didn't kill Madden, but tried to help him up after Weller did the dirty deed (done dirt cheap). Caine knows that Weller would only be following Sarnoff's orders if he confessed -- but there is nothing the sunglasses-happy cop can do about it.
Sure enough, Weller confesses to the killing, although Caine and the rest of the team don't buy it for a minute. Outside the precinct, Sarnoff and Caine meet. "You trained him well, Ivan," Caine growls.
"What is it you're after?" Sarnoff asks.
"I'm after you, Ivan," Cane growls. "And I'm going to get you."
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