CSI: NY

On the East River, the " Staten Island Decision Race " is taking place between two sail boats. One is from the state of New York, the other from the state of New Jersey. The ambiance is competitive but festive. A couple on a jet ski is zigzagging around the boats, with the woman holding up a sign displaying the couple's preference for New Jersey. The driver of the jet ski is looking at the sail boats and at the very last minute, sees the dead body of a diver floating just in front of him. He swerves to avoid it and gets hit by one of the boats.
On an NYPD rescue boat, the Jet Ski couple is getting treated for minor injuries while Sheldon Hawkes is processing the badly decomposed body of the diver on the dock.
Mac Taylor and Danny Messer arrive at the scene. There is a foul odour in the air. Mac explains that the odour comes from a bubble of methane that was released by an underwater tremor earlier that morning. They meet Detective Flack and he leads them to the dock. When they arrive, Hawkes reports that according to his calculations, the body has been in the water for a few weeks. When he removed the diver's mask, he found evidence of petechial hemorraghing, which is a sign of asphyxiation. Danny checks the diver's tank gauge which shows that the tank is 90% full. Mac wonders how a diver with a full tank of oxygen manages to drown.


In the autopsy room, Sid is examining the body. Stella joins him. Sid tells her that he found starfish inside the corpse's stomach. He explains that they are carnivorous and eat internal organs. He estimates the time of death at 2 or 3 weeks ago. Also, the victim had a prosthetic ear because of a congenital ear deformity. The serial number on the prosthetic will help get an ID. Sid tells her that the victim did not drown after all. He (Sid) found traces of cyanide in the lung tissue of the victim.


Stella joins Lindsay in the lab, she (Lindsay) is examining the starfish under an x-ray machine. She sees something inorganic in the stomach of the fish. She'll have to do an autopsy on the fish to find out what it is. While she's explaining this to Stella, a tech lab brings Stella a folder containing the information that the victim was an advanced certified diving instructor.


Flack and Stella are at the diving school the victim taught at. They are talking to the school's manager who informs them that Doug Holden (the victim) hasn't been around for the last 2 or 3 weeks and neither has Doug's partner, Matt Campbell. Flack asks for a list of Doug Holden's clients.


Danny and Hawkes are the lab, testing the hoses from the diver's oxygen tank. They find that the hose was punctured, most likely with a hypodermic needle filled with cyanide. They believe that the hose was probably punctured during the dive, by somebody Holden was diving with.


Working from the list they got from the diving school, Flack and Stella each pay visits to some of the victim's clients. Stella meets a jeweller couple who went to St-Kitts on a private diving lesson with Doug (the victim), the wife seems very pleased with the lesson. Flack has a discussion with a waitress who has had lessons with both Doug and his partner, Matt Campbell. She tells him that Matt was a bit competitive and liked to show off but that Doug just "went with the flow".
Finally, Stella meets two foreign students who only had 3 or 4 lessons with Doug due to the fact that one of them came up too fast one time and got decompression sickness (bends), so they had to stop the lessons.


Back at the lab, Stella and Mac are discussing the possible involvement of Matt Campbell in Doug's death, since he (Matt) has been missing for 3 weeks also, he could be the killer or another victim. Lindsay interrupts them to give the results of her autopsy of the starfish. She found traces of an epoxy resin in the starfish stomachs. This particular resin was used to encase the asbestos insulation in the New York subways in the 1960's. The subways were later dumped in the East River. The team now has a primary crime scene.


Mac is on a boat with Danny and Hawkes who are all dressed up in diving gear. They are getting ready to dive to the subway reef to find any clues that might help solve the case. Mac warns them that it's "dark down there and there are tidal currents, rocks and reefs to deal with" so they should stay within their assigned grids. Danny and Hawkes dive and proceed to inspect to subway cars. They don't see anything special except a lot of starfish, until Hawkes stumbles upon another dead scuba diver.


Back at the lab, Sid gives Hawkes the rundown on the second victim. He died of cyanide poisoning, just like the first victim. Dental records have confirmed that the second victim is Matt Campbell, Doug Holden's partner.


Lindsay and Stella are processing Matt's diving gear. Lindsay finds some kind of worm in his diving mask. Stella finds what looks like gold coins in one of his gloves. They are heavy like real gold and are dated 1783. They speculate that the divers might have been looking for a buried treasure which would explain why they took the risk of diving in the dangerous East River.


Stella takes the coin to a specialist at an antique shop. After examining it, he tells her that the coin is a fake. He goes in the back of the shop to get more information in his files. While Stella is waiting for him to come back, a customer browsing nearby tells her that the real version of the coin she found sells for over 10 000$. Surprised at this information, Stella asks him how he happens to just know that. He motions to a book in his hands "Old coins of Spain". He admits that he had to find some excuse to talk to her and introduces himself as Drew Bedford. While shaking Stella's hand, he tells her that she has a nice energy and that he noticed it the second he saw her. Before Stella can reply, the consultant comes back. He gives her a little more information and says that if he had a picture of the coin she found, he could investigate more. She agrees to have the lab send him a picture and leaves him her business card in case he finds anything. She thanks Drew Bedford for the information and leaves.


Stella meets Mac back at the office and tells him about the fake coins. They are high quality, lead electro-plated with a gold veneer. Mac mentions that cyanide is used in the electroplating process so they could be looking for a jeweller or metal worker. Stella remembers that one of Doug Holden's clients was a jeweller, Colin Barnett. They have Flack bring him in for questioning.
When Flack asks Colin about the coins, Colin says he has never seen them before, he's a jeweller, not a coin maker. Flack tells him about the electroplating process and Colin comments that based on that alone, all the jewellers in town could be suspects. But Flack tells him that he (Colin) had motive to kill Doug Holden. When Colin and his wife Erika were in St-Kitts with Doug Holden, Erika had an affair with Doug. Flack tells Colin that it must have been tough for him to be the "third wheel". Colin explains that he and Erika had an understanding and that he was totally fine with her spending some extra time with Doug after the diving lessons in St-Kitts.


Stella enters Mac's office. He's sitting at his desk, in front of his computer. She tells him that Colin's alibi checked out. They discuss the case. Stella thinks the diver's might have been involved in a treasure hunting scam. Mac mentions that there are hundreds of shipwrecks at the bottom of the East River, it would be plausible that someone might have lured the divers with the promise of a treasure. Stella suddenly tells Mac that she tried calling him 5 minutes ago but there was no answer. Mac informs her that he changed his extension because of the anonymous calls he got while he was in London. He tells her that he has started getting them here at the office. Before they can discuss it any further, Lindsay comes in with information about the worm that she found in Matt Campbell's diving mask. It originates from somewhere at least 100 feet deeper than the subway reef. They speculate that if they are looking at ship wreck, that could be where the murders took place.


Danny and Hawkes are back on the boat. With the help of sonar, they locate the ship wreck they are looking for.
They dive to investigate further. Another diver accompanies them, he'll be filming the search. Stella, Lindsay and Mac are watching the video images from the lab. Mac is in radio contact with Danny and Hawkes.
Danny poses next to the figure head of the ship. Lindsay grabs an image of it and Stella goes off to run it through the Maritime Database to see if she can't get the name of the ship.
The currents are pulling in every direction and Mac tells the guys to hurry it up. He and Lindsay are still following everything on the computer screen.
Danny finds a syringe which could be the murder weapon. Hawkes finds an old chest but when he opens it, it's empty. With the help of a metal detector, he finds coins in the sand, close to the chest. Hawkes tells Danny to bring the evidence back up while he looks around a little longer. As he swims under the ship's mast, there is a bubble of methane gas that suddenly explodes, creating a lot of turbulence. The mast falls on Hawkes, trapping him. Danny comes back down to go to Hawkes' rescue, with the help of the other diver, who drops the camera in the sand. Lindsay and Mac have now lost visual contact with the divers, but they can still hear them.
Hawkes is not getting enough air because the mast fell on his oxygen tank. Mac calls for a diver with a hydraulic pump to rescue Hawkes but Lindsay notes that it will take too long for a rescue team to get to them.
In the meantime, Danny manages to cut the straps that hold Hawkes' oxygen tank and releases him. He gives him some of his oxygen and they both are able to make it to the surface.


Back to safety, Hawkes is getting treated for his injuries. He has some cracked ribs and a hairline fracture in his right arm. Danny asks him if it's true that your life flashes before your eyes when you think you're going to die. Hawkes tells him that the only thing he could think of was Sid Hammerback "firing up the bone sprayer" while he (Hawkes) was laying on the autopsy table. Flack arrives at the scene, asking what happened. The guys joke around at Hawkes' expense, lightening up the mood.


Back in the lab, Danny is processing the syringe while Lindsay is examining the coins that Hawkes found at the wreck. She tells Danny that Hawkes was lucky that he had Danny down there with him. Danny brushes her off, pointing out that they have work to do. She laughs, not taking him seriously.
Lindsay remarks that the coins are an exact match to the ones they found on Matt Campbell. Danny finds traces of cyanide in the syringe, along with traces of cortisone.


Meanwhile, Stella is trying to find a match to the ship's figure head in the Maritime Database but with no success. Fed up, she leaves the office to go to a nearby coffee stand. She orders her coffee and turns around to come face to face with Drew Bedford, the guy from the antique shop. He tells her that he was just about to call her to invite her for coffee. He admits that he got her card from the counter at the antique shop where she left it. He says that he would really like to get to know her better. She brushes him off telling him that she's really busy and starts to leave.
"You don't take risks, do you?" he says. Stella stops in her tracks and turns around. He continues: "You're practical, rational, you're probably an only child. You had a lot of responsibility as a kid."
Stella approaches him with a disgusted look. "You're the youngest in a family of girls. They pampered you, praised you, bet they hung on your every word" she says.
"Guilty" he says.
She then starts to leave again and he gives her a time and place to meet later on, in case she changes her mind. She ignores him and walks back to the office.


Flack exits the elevator as Stella is walking by. He found some information about the ship wreck. Someone filed a salvage permit for the ship but they did so under a fake name. This makes no sense because if they did indeed salvage something, they would not be able to claim it. Stella comments that it looks like someone was trying to make it look like there was a treasure on the ship, but why? Her cell phone beeps and she has to leave.


Stella joins Danny and Mac. Danny has done some more tests on the syringe and he found some male DNA with a specification to Balkan ancestry but he found no hits in CODIS. Stella suddenly remembers the two foreign students that she interviewed. She checks her files and confirms that they are from Albania, a Balkan country. When she mentions that they quit the diving lessons because one of them got the bends, Danny notes that the bends can cause inflammation in the joints and Mac observes that inflammation is often treated with cortisone. All the evidence was in the syringe.


Mac, Stella and Flack pay a visit to the students. As they arrive at their apartment, one of them, Zamir Duka, is at the door, unlocking it. When Flack mentions NYPD, the student throws the gym bag he was holding in Mac's face and tackles Flack. They fall down the stairs and Zamir manages to escape. Mac and Flack run after him while Stella calls for backup. When the backup arrives, she enters the apartment, gun drawn, looking for the other suspect.
Meanwhile, Mac catches the suspect and with Flack's help, cuffs him.
Still searching the apartment for the other student, Stella opens the door to a room filled with maps of New York, charts, blueprints, timers and wires. She runs out of the apartment.
As Mac is helping the suspect into the squad car, Stella comes running out and yells at the suspect to tell her where the target is. Mac gently pushes her aside. She tells him what she found and explains that the suspects were building a bomb.


Mac and Stella are in the apartment. They establish that the two students lured Doug Holden and Matt Campbell with stories of buried treasures because they needed to learn how to navigate the currents of the East River and they also needed an excuse to be in the water for a long time in order to plant their bomb, without raising suspicions.
One of the officers searching the apartment comes in the room with a suitcase he found. With a detector, he shows Mac and Stella that he's picking up strong emissions of semtex (a plastic explosive) from the suitcase. The suitcase is now empty. They need to find the bomb.


Danny is in an interrogation room with the suspect when Mac enters suddenly, picks up the suspect, throws him against the wall and starts to suffocate him by pushing his arm against the suspect's throat. Danny closes the door and tells Mac to go easy. Mac ignores him and continues to choke the suspect, telling him that he has about one minute to divulge the location of the bomb. Flack enters the room, saying that he has information. Mac releases the suspect who drops to the ground, gasping for air.


As they leave the interrogation room, Flack tells Mac that Stella downloaded a speaker schedule for the United Nations from the suspect's laptop.
The United Nations' commissioner of public integrity is scheduled to speak in half an hour. He's investigating millions of dollars that were stolen by Iraqi insurgents, who are supported by the Albanian Liberation Army.
They find out that the commissioner is arriving by helicopter, and there's a helipad on the 23rd street, right on the East River. That's where the suspects planted the bomb. Flack gives the information to the bomb squad as he's heading for the heliport with Mac.


The second suspect is in the water, near the heliport. There are several police boats searching the area. When the suspect comes up, he's face to face with Mac's gun. Mac tells him he's under arrest. "Let me see your right hand" Mac yells at him. The suspect looks around, he's holding the detonator under water in his right hand. He arms the bomb, looks around again, while Mac is still yelling at him to show his hand. The suspect pushes the button on the detonator but nothing happens. Surprised, he pushes it again. Still nothing.
Flack's voice is heard on Mac's radio: "They found the bomb, frequency jammed, bomb disarmed. Repeat: bomb disarmed".
The suspect is apprehended.


It's night time and Danny is in the office, gathering his papers and closing up his briefcase. Hawkes appears at the door. "What are you doin' here man?" Danny asks. Hawkes tells him he wanted to make sure that everything was ok. Danny tells him that everything worked out and that he (Hawkes) should be in bed right now.
Hawkes, embarrassed, tries to tell Danny that he wants to thank him for saving his life. Danny interrupts him: "Hey hey, forget about it, all right? It's all in a day's work right? You'd do the same for me, no?"
Hawkes smiles: "Hummm, well….."
Danny puts an arm around Hawkes' shoulder and they both start laughing as they walk to the elevators.