NB: To all people who are reading this, no offense was meant to any Russian people and I really do not think that they are how I describe the Mafia in this story; it is just how the characters are in the story so if you are offended, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.

With love from Russia

Chapter 1

Today is the Fourth of July. It is also America's Day of Independence. It is a sizzling day in Washington DC, the sun was out and not a gust of wind disturbed the thirsty trees outside the convention centre in Washington where the President of the United States is due to make a speech. People waving little paper Stars and Stripes are already lined up and down the roads waiting for the flashy limousine followed by police bikes to come. The children and other vertically challenged adults are already jumping up and down excitedly, trying to see past their taller counterparts.

Standing at the very edge (behind the wall obviously) on the top level of the bank opposite the convention centre, there was a well dressed man. A very well dressed man indeed. He was wearing a designer tux, designer trousers, a designer shirt, and not to mention the designer bow-tie, yes, a bow-tie. One might wonder where he got such a thing, but if you asked, he'd just smile at you coldly and tell you to piss the hell off which brings me to my point that he was not a very pleasant man at all. So he was standing there in his designer bow-tie with a big black bag at his feet watching the crowd intently from behind his reflective sunglasses. What a perfect day for this, he thought blissfully and took out his cell phone. He dialed a number and spoke.

"He's here," he said.

Then he sits down on his bottom and waited.

Down below, the sweating crowds just got rowdier because they could hear the police sirens coming closer. They couldn't see the limo yet but they cheered louder anyway. Then, slowly, pushing through the crowds, came the black limousine. It got to the entrance of the centre and out jumped the president. No, he didn't really do that, he got out nicely, all dignified, smiling and waving at the crowd of mad people who were still cheering him on. He got out, walked a couple of steps toward the entrance……..and suddenly dropped onto the ground. There was silence, then confusion, then one person at the front screamed and the whole crowd started to scream even though they had no idea what happened or what was going on. But the girl who screamed did and knew for sure when she saw the red blood seeping out from the various holes in the presidents body, that the President of the United States is dead.

Up above the now screaming crowd, the nasty man packed away his sniper rifle into the big, black bag. He stood up feeling satisfied and took out his phone again.

"It is done," was all he said before he hung up and made his way down the building in a rather unusual way. He abseiled down the side of the building into a dark alley way and landed just before a black van. He slid open the door, climbed in and soon the black van disappeared.

Brrrrrrr brrrrrrr, brrrrrrr brrrrrrr.

"This is CSI Las Vegas, how may we help you?"

"We are looking for a Gil Grissom, please."

"Alright, I'll put you through."

"Hello."

"Are you Gil Grissom?"

"Why, indeed, I am. And you are?"

"The FBI, calling from Washington on behalf of us and the CIA."

Silence.

"The president has just been assassinated and we need you and your team to come up here and take a look at the body."

"Why can't you do that yourself?"

"We are understaffed at the moment."

"Ah, I know how that feels."

"We will be expecting you at our headquarters at 0200 hours this afternoon. Goodbye, Mr. Grissom."

That leaves us no choice, thought Gris to himself as he walked out his office.

"Alright folks! I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"

"The bad," said Sara, still reading her book.

"The president of the United States has been assassinated today," Grissom said grimly.

Everyone in the lab stopped what they were doing and looked at him in shock.

"What about the good news?" asked Nick, still staring at Grissom.

"Yeah, about that, we're going to Washington today to help the FBI and the CIA because they are understaffed."

"Understaffed! And now they come looking at us for help. What have they ever done for us?" agitated Nick.

"Hey look at it this way, Nick, this is your one and only chance to see the President naked and lying in a morgue," joked Warrick.

Nick looked as if he wanted to puke. "Now why would I want to see a thing like that?"

"'Coz – "

"Hey, guys. Did I miss something?" inquired Greg curiously as he came into the room.

"Yeah, you sure did," said Catherine, still looking quite shocked, "we're going to Washington."

"Where are we staying, Gil?" complained Sara miserably. Seven people were squashed into a hot, stuffy cab and all of them were feeling rather dismal.

"It should be right around the corner. It's the Hotel Sierra," said Grissom shortly, "It's about a block away from FBI head quarters."

Nick muttered something incomprehensible at the word "FBI".

"What?" Warrick said irritably.

"Nothing."

"Well, then, quit muttering."

The cab stopped in front of the lavishly designed hotel entrance and the driver hurriedly kicked them out his car before an argument could ensue.

"Thank you!" yelled Doc. Robbins to the back of the cab. He was the only cheerful member of the team left as he had slept all the way from the airport to the hotel.

The group walked through the polished glass doors and into the hotel and everyone sighed in relief as the air-con washed over their hot bodies. They all instantly cheered up and went to check-in at the polished wooden table. The women stayed one room while the five men shared another bigger room which would still make them pretty squashed.

"Right, we'll meet down here at half past one to walk to the head quarters," announced Grissom.

They breezed off happily to their rooms.

"You have done well, Vladimir."

"Thank you, sir."

"Now I need you to enter the CSI team as an intern and sabotage their investigation. Destroy all the evidence they have gathered that would incriminate us. Go."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes……at this time of the year?...alright, send him over for his first case……Vladimir? Is he Russian? OK, bye."

Grissom snapped his Motorola V3 Razr shut and hurried towards the pleasant, sunny lobby to meet with the others.

"Hey, there's a new intern that will be working with us for this case. He's arriving at the airport now and I need one of you to go over and fetch him. His name is Vladimir, by the way, so if you don't mind Russians……"

"Yeah, hey, I'll go," volunteered Nick immediately, "it beats going to the FBI head quarters at this time of day."

"You sure man? There'll be air-con, coffee, FBI agents and of course, the naked, dead president," said Warrick persuasively.

"Nah, not my cup o' tea, thanks."

"You shouldn't be joking about the president, Warrick," said Catherine reproachfully, "it's not good for your health."

"Hey, what was that supposed to mean? I…"

Nick grinned at them and walked off to get a cab.

Sara, Grissom, Catherine and Warrick arrived at the crime scene after being briefed on the case by a grim, hurried, expressionless and frankly boring CIA agent.

"So, he was going to make a speech here today," said Sara, glancing down at the president's body sadly, "he was a lovely man."

Grissom raised his eyebrows at Sara and she blushed.

"I meant he was a good president, that's all."

Gris smiled. "Right, let's start this process and find all the evidence we can."

Meanwhile, at the airport, Nick met Vladimir for the first time. His first impression of the man was not a very good one. His face looks sour and he is too impeccably dressed, thought Nick. And, yes, indeed, he was. His platinum blonde hair was gelled up into fashionable spikes, his teeth were unusually white and pointy and he looked unbothered by all the heat and the activity around him. Nick put on a smile and went to receive this weird Russian man warmly.

"Hello, are you Vladimir?"

"Yes," he said with a hint, just a hint, of coldness.

"Right, well, I'm Nick, and your first case is pretty exciting – "

"Yes, we are investigating the death of your president. I was briefed already," said Vladimir with a suggestion of snobbishness.

"Alright," said Nick who could already see that they were not gonna be friends.

Great, now I'm stuck with an arrogant pussy from Russia, thought Nick ill-fatedly, just my luck.

In the late afternoon, after the team had finished processing the crime scene they went back to the FBI lab and waited for Nick to show up. The body had already gone to Doc Robbins, who is busy cutting up the necessary bits of the president who is now very dead …and naked.

"Hey guys, guess who's here?" announced Nick a tad unhappily. You would be too, if you were stuck with an unpleasant Russian dude who obviously doesn't work well in a team and who doesn't even want to converse with anyone and his breath doesn't even smell bad so he can't use that as an excuse, thought Nick maliciously. "This is Vladimir, everyone, and do please go introduce yourselves before you guys catch me up on the evidence." He sat down by the table in a huff.

There was an awkward silence.

"Oh, uh, I'm Catherine Willows."

"And I'm Sara. Sidle."

"And I'm Sanders, Greg Sanders. That, over there, is Gil Grissom but we call him Gris or Grissom and in the morgue you'll find Doctor Al Robbins who we like to call Doc," said Greg.

"'n me?" asked Warrick.

"Oh, yeah, that's Warrick Brown," finished Greg.

"Thank you," said the unsmiling Russian.

"Good. Well then, Nick and Vladimir, this is the evidence we found at the crime scene and it's not a lot: the president's shirt, a blood swab and Doc Robbins will have the necessary information from the body in a few moments so we can take a look at that evidence as well. Are you staying in our hotel as well?" Gris rattled off and ended his ranting with a look at Vladimir.

"Yes."

"Great, we'll be doing laser trajectory tomorrow at the crime scene so you can do that with me but for now you can go down to the morgue with…Warrick. The rest of us will get what we can from the little bit of evidence that we have."

Vladimir nodded and Warrick gestured for him to follow.

"Hey, Doc, what's up?"

"Warrick! I was beginning to think you guys have forgotten about me. Come for your evidence, have you?"

"Yeah, so we have," said Warrick with a special emphasis on the word 'we'.

"Ah, who might we have here?"

"This is Vlad, our new intern," Warrick said, looking over to Vladimir and thinking just how well the Russian fits in with the grey, dingy, metal and sterilized morgue.

"Hi there," said Doc Robbins. Then turning to Warrick he said, "Well, here's all three bullets and their striations and the cause of death is the third bullet puncturing the left ventricle of the president's heart which caused severe blood loss that resulted in his death." "Poor guy", he added as an after thought.

"Right. Thanks a lot, Doc, we'll see you later."

"Oh, wait there a second," said Doc Robbins, pulling the cover further down the president's chest. "Take a look at this."

Warrick peered over Doc Robbins' shoulder and his eyes widened in surprise. "Holy Shit! Vlad! Look at this! D'you know what it is?"

Vladimir walked stiffly over to the operating table and scrutinized the president's chest. "It is a picture of a rose on his chest," remarked Vladimir in a tone that suggested he thought them to be stupid.

"Yeah, but do you know what it means?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I do not. Do you?"

"Aye, I do," said Warrick, putting on a triumphant Scottish accent for no reason. "'Tis the tattoo of an accomplished Mafia of the Russian order!"

As he said the last bit, he scanned Vladimir's face and was promptly rewarded as he saw Vladimir's expressionless mask slip for the first time into an expression of alarm and panic. When Vladimir looked up with his cold eyes to meet Warrick's, however, the mask was back on.

"So was our president part of the Russian Mafia?" asked Doc Robbins.