With Love form Russia

Chapter 2

That evening, at the dinner table in the prestigious dining room in the Hotel Sierra, the CSI team took a look at this nasty surprise of a problem. They were all pretty much puzzled at this dire situation.

"So is this a coincidence or what?" asked Greg blandly.

"You believe in coincidences?" said Sara disbelievingly.

"No, it would not be a coincidence," said Warrick, "either the president is part of the mafia or he tattooed an unearned rose on his chest on purpose just to piss them off and got himself killed in the process of doing so."

"That's not a good idea, though, so why would anyone do a thing like that?" questioned Nick.

"And how do you know that it was not a coincidence? Anyone could've gone into a tattoo shop and got a rose on his chest," challenged Greg.

"I know 'coz I studied criminal tattoos. That rose on his chest is unique-it can only belong to someone who is in or is associated with the Russian Mafia and only accomplished members have it."

"There is also a tiger in the middle of the rose, what would that be then?" asked Grissom.

"It's – hey, what! I know something you don't? Really, that's just – wow! I thought you knew everything!" Warrick half yelled.

"The answer would be appreciated, Warrick," said Grissom, cutting up his meat and giving Warrick the evil eye at the same time.

"Alright, alright. The tiger means that this person is, or was, an avenger of some sorts who and did all the revenge work."

"Thank you. And that does not look good for the president at all."

Everyone then took a moment to eat their food and digest this new information.

Then, suddenly, Doc Robbins piped up. "Oh, yeah, forgot to mention this earlier, but I ran some tests on the ink and it is not the usual tattooing ink that any commercial tattoo store in America would use so it was definitely not done 'round here."

"Well, what makes it so special?" inquired Catherine.

"It contains a mild poison that makes your nerves less responsive to pain so when and if you get into any melee fights, you are more likely to win because you won't be doubled up in pain."

Suddenly, Vladimir who hadn't spoke a word all evening, stood up and excused himself from the table.

"What's up with him? He's so……weird," commented Sara as he walked away from them, "he didn't even eat his food – I mean who doesn't eat food?"

The rest of the team nodded in agreement.

"I don't trust him," said Warrick.

In the elevator, Vladimir glared murderously at his phone before he flicked it open, dialed a number and hissed softly in Russian, "They know! They know about the rose and the tiger and EVERY FUCKING THING!" He abandoned his scary voice and shouted the last three words. "You told me they would know nothing about this, Yuri, but it seems you have UNDERESTIMATED them and therefore it means that you have failed me yet again….give you another chance, my dear Yuri? Now tell me why I should do that when you have failed me at least three times….hmmmm, you will do all the dirty work for me? Good, I will also blame everything that has gone wrong in this mission on your head so you can deal with the boss when he finds out. You just got yourself a deal, Yuri, goodbye," and he hung up without giving Yuri a chance to protest at the fairly unjust deal he just got himself.

Vladimir then dialed another number, cleared his throat and spoke in a more respectful tone of voice, "One of them knows too much about us and our ways, sir."

"Who?"

"Warrick Brown, sir, the black CSI."

"Dispose of him, Vladimir, do this with stealth and only after you have disposed of the evidence."

"Yes, sir."

He slid his phone shut and stalked into his room, slamming his door bad- temperedly after him.

The next sunny morning at approximately nine o'clock, Vladimir and Grissom arrived at the crime scene with a rather obscene dummy. Nah, just kidding, it was just faceless and soft. They got out the van and proceeded to the spot where the president was gunned down and died.

"Right, so he was standing here waving just before the assassin shot him down."

"Yes, of course," grumbled Vladimir sourly.

Grissom narrowed his eyes at him and thought irritably when he heard the tone of his voice: a dummy being carried by a dummy, what the hell.

"So you put the dummy here on the place where he was standing and stick these three lasers into the middle of the Xs on its chest. Make them go up at a 60o angle."

Vlad complied sullenly.

"Good, now let's get these lasers switched on and see where the assassin stood at the time of the murder."

Vlad switched them on and they both looked in the direction the laser was pointing them to.

"Just right across the road," said Grissom, looking up at the top level of the bank, "that's pretty close. Come on, let's go."

He picked up his tool kit and ran over to the bank entrance, yelling for Vladimir to leave the lasers on as he crossed the empty road.

Grissom opened the doors to the roof of the bank and walked out, blinking his eyes in the sunlight as Vladimir followed him outside and blinking his eyes in the sunlight as well. So they both walked out onto the roof, blinking their eyes in the sunlight in one moment of united-ness before that moment was destroyed by Grissom turning around and looking into Vladimir's sour face to talk to him.

"Right, the lasers say that that place over there," he said, gesturing to the place where the assassin had sat and waited only yesterday for the president to step out of the car in order to be a clear target to shoot at and he carried on saying: "which is where we will start looking for evidence to nab this assassin." And with that, he walked off to the indicated area.

Stupid man, thought Vladimir, the killer is right in front of your nose and you still cannot find him. But he followed Grissom anyway, just to see what he would find.

Meanwhile, Grissom had been combing the area with his eyes and is now busy looking at some abnormal marks on a wall. He opened his tool kit, took out the mikrosil and mikrosilled the mark. Great, he thought happily, the first bit of evidence. Then an idea popped into his head.

"Hey, Vladimir, what did Doc say was the time of death?"

"Ten thirty."

"Splendid. I need you to go down to the security office and get me yesterday's security tapes from half past nine to eleven AM. Oh, and don't bother coming back up-I'm nearly finished up here."

Vladimir vanished behind the door and Grissom went over to stand where the killer stood. He put his hand on the wall and pulled himself up just to look over it (yes, it was that tall) and another thought occurred to him.

"The assassin must've put his hands here as well to look for the president," said Grissom, thinking aloud, "Maybe I can get a print off this."

And with that, he hoisted his kit up onto his bent knee and got hold of the print powder. Then he started to dust the whole top part of wall in powder until at last he got what he was looking for: the fingerprint of the assassin.

Yeah! Go me, he thought gleefully and swept the scene with his eyes one last time before he went down to the van.

Back in the lab, Nick waited as he scanned the new fingerprint into the fingerprint database and waited again as the computer compared all the similar prints to the one fingerprint.

"Hey, how's the fingerprint going?" asked Warrick as he walked past Nick.

"There's nothing, absolutely nothing," said Nick forlornly. "I mean, I'm not surprised 'coz we really don't have many Russian Mafia people messing up our country - it's mainly Israelis and what not."

"Ah, well," said Warrick, patting Nick on the shoulder comfortingly, "at least we know the tool that made Gris's mikrosil mark.

"Yeah?" said Nick, perking up, "what is it?"

"It's an abseiling hook. That's probably how our perp got on and off the roof 'coz Cath and Sara can't find nothing on those security tapes Vlad got for us."

Then, sensing that someone was staring at the back of his head, Warrick looked around and Vladimir on the other side of the lab quickly looked away.

"I really do not trust that guy," murmured Warrick to Nick, "looks as if he was eavesdropping on us and I mean eavesdropping as if he's into something shady."

Nick, who hadn't noticed anything wrong, looked around to take look at Vlad.

"Nah, you're probably just imagining it 'coz he's Russian," he said, disregarding the matter, "relax a little, Warrick."

"No, no, I've got a hunch. I'm gonna get his prints and run them with our perp's print."

"OK, do what ever you want, buddy. It's dinner soon; you can get it then, if you really want to."

Vladimir, who had heard the whole conversation, is now sitting on a toilet talking on his phone.

"Yuri, where are you now?"

"England."

"Good. I need you to come here immediately."

"Why?"

"I need your help. Get yourself a room at the Hotel Sierra and pay for it yourself, too."

"OK."

"I'd better see you tomorrow or I'll feed you to my pet crocodile."

He put his phone back into his pocket and flushed the unused loo before walking out of the bathroom. Then, on second thoughts, he opened his phone again and spoke to his boss in Russian.

"I cannot sabotage this investigation, sir; they have already processed all the evidence. The black CSI is still the only suspicious member of the team and I believe he is going to get my fingerprints at the dinner table today."

"Get the evidence and dispose of him as soon as possible."

"Right, sir, I'll do it."

And he slid his phone back into his pants pocket.

That evening, the disheartened team sat slumped at the dinner table, discussing their lack of evidence.

"There's so little to work on and the CIA wants us to solve this case quickly so we won't take up all the resources," said a dismayed Sara.

"At least we have some evidence; we'll just have to keep on trying. We know pretty much for sure that this was done by the Russian Mafia but we just have to prove it," said Catherine, trying to be optimistic but not quite succeeding.

"Yeah, but we have such limited information on them that we can hardly prove anything," said Greg, who was feeling thoroughly dispirited.

"This means that this crime was done by a bunch of professionals who might be second guessing every step of our investigation. We're dealing with our equals on the other side of the law, boys, and we need to be careful," Grissom told the rest of his team.

"And girls," added Sara irrelevantly and belatedly.

"Right - and girls."

The stressing-ly depressed team gave a collective sigh and carried on eating their food – other than Warrick, that is. Instead of following the conversation, Warrick has indeed been watching Vladimir like a hawk watching its prey. He was watching his every move and noting to himself all the things that Vlad had touched. When at last everyone had finished their main course and the waiters came to pick their dirty plates up, Warrick stood up, excused himself, squeezed past Nick and followed the waiters into the kitchen.

The kitchen was terribly hot and airless but nevertheless, Warrick braved the heat and walked inside still following the waiter that carried Vladimir's cutlery.

"Excuse me," he hailed the waiter, "may I take a look at that cup please?"

"Yeah, OK, why?"

"I just need to get a fingerprint off it," replied Warrick.

And, my word, it was the wrong answer indeed.

"Omigosh, really? Are you a detective? That's just so awesome! I've always wanted to become a detective – hey, can I try doing that? Hey – wait!"

Warrick hurriedly took the fingerprint, smiled at the overenthusiastic youth and practically ran out of the kitchen to get away from the eager beaver. Once outside, he breathed a sigh of relief and made haste to the FBI lab one block away.

Arriving at the FBI building, he made his way up to the second floor and to the lab. He quickly scanned the print in and, holding his breath, he compared the assassin's prints to the Vladimir's prints. Little blocks appeared on the fingerprints before a flashing red sign came up reading: Match Found.