- A big rig accident results in the discovery of an interstate trucking ring that specializes in human cargo and black market organ harvesting -- and sets off a race against time to save a hostage.
- Previously on CSI: Miami... body parts were found in Miami and a creepy guy was dragging a girl across country as she secretly left notes in rest stop bathrooms.
A big rig tears down the freeway. The creepy driver swigs on his Big Gulp and ignores the noise of someone banging to get out of the compartment behind him.
In another car, a drunk man gets in a fight on the phone with his wife as he speeds down the road.
The truck driver yells at his cargo to keep quiet as he reaches for a gun.
The angry husband drops his phone and bends to get it, swerving into traffic. The woman busts free from inside the semi just as the car driver slams head on into the semi.
Later. Flack called Mack and Stella because the semi swerved out of its lane. There's an oil drum amid the debris. Flack opens it up and reveals a dead girl inside.
She was killed 36 to 48 hours ago. She bled out somewhere else and was put in the drum.
They take the body in the drum to the M.E.'s office. She's in her underwear and there's a deep X cut into her side. Dr. Hammerback examines the body while Lindsay and Danny process the scene.
Danny notices blood on the dashboard hula girl and inside the cab. They open up the compartment the person was banging on from inside.
Mac takes a look. There are bloody scratches on the inside, but no signs of sexual assault. They notice the door was damaged. Mac wonders if that's what caused the crash.
Dr. Hammerback reports that the victim's liver was removed while she was alive. She bled to death. They get to work looking for someone with AB positive blood getting a liver.
Lindsay has an ID for the driver's prints. He's Casey Steele, a parolee with no reported address.
Detective Flack interviews a witness in the hospital. Steele carjacked him after the accident and put a 20 something woman with dark hair in his back seat. Ten miles down the road Steele made the driver pull over. Then he took his cell phone and wallet and shot him. Someone drove by seconds later and found him.
Lindsay has ID'd Steele's prisoner as Madeline Briggs, a woman who went missing in Miami five days ago (and who we saw leaving a note in a restroom on Monday). A pee test shows she's pregnant.
Adam comes in with the results of the fingerprint analysis from inside the sleeper cab. The prints belong to Madeline and "a lot" of other women. More than 20, from all over the country, including their Jane Doe.
CSI's Ray Langston calls up. He shows them the note Madeline left in an Orlando truck stop. The man who had her at the time was found shot in the head a day later. They do a quick test and find the bullet matches Steele's gun.
A quick recap on the Zetas gang: they target women 19 to 25, lure them into prostitution or use them however they want for organs or forced surrogacy.
Langston tells Mac he's not about to stop looking for Madeline now. He'll be on the next flight to NYC. (It is a crossover, after all.)
Cut to Mac greeting Langston at a helipad, telling him about a prisoner they made a deal with who shared a cell with a human trafficker.
She tells them they travel at night and work around the clock, using semis. She doesn't recognize the name Steele or the Zetas. She says it's the truck driver's job to keep the "cargo" alive, but they kill girls who are too much trouble.
Mac thinks the fact Madeline is pregnant might keep her alive because her baby might be worth something. Langston tries to figure out how to tell her mom what's going on. They swap war stories about how hard it is to deal with the death and breaking the news.
In the lab, Dr. Hawkes found a patient with AB positive blood who just removed himself from the transplant list.
Detective Flack heads to the hospital, where the doctor is about to begin surgery. He's not surprised to see Flack. He says if Flack arrests him now, the patient can die. Or he can wait until he's done with the operation. Flack waits.
Later in the station, the doctor tells Flack how it works. He makes a call, but doesn't know who he talks to, and later an organ shows up in a cooler.
Dr. Hawkes is disgusted with the black market organ doctor and shows him the photos of dead Jane Doe, telling him how the harvesting works. He beats him over the head with the Hippocratic oath, David Caruso-style.
The doctor gives Flack the number he calls.
The team gets to work tracking the numbers on the list, most of which belong to doctors.
Adam comes in, saying he got a hit on the carjack victim's cell phone. Steele's in a pharmacy.
Flack and Hawkes pull up but Steele sees them and runs. Flack chases him to, what else, a dark alley, where Steele jumps out and whacks him with something. Hawkes follows him up a fire escape, but Steele kicks him off and makes it to roof access door which he enters and locks behind him. Uniforms head to seal the exits.
But Steele gets away. They find Steele was waiting for a sedative prescription. They think Madeline is still alive. Flack gets a call that officers found the car Steele jacked around the corner. They check it out, but there's no sign of Madeline.
They take the car back to the lab where it gets the blue light treatment. They also run tests on some dirt in the car which leads them to a scrap yard near Citi Field.
On site, Langston reluctantly takes a gun. Dozens of officers storm the scrap yard, guns drawn. In a trailer, Mac opens a door and finds evidence that Madeline was held there. Outside, Steele walks by an officer and shoots him. He takes off into the stacks of junk cars.
Langston hops on a handy motor bikes and gives chase, following Steele as he runs along the hoods of old cars with Mac on foot behind him.
Langston ditches the bike and cuts Steele off. He and Mac disarm him. Steele says Madeline is "gone."
Langston tries to convince Steele to make a deal to reveal where she is, but Steele says he's ready to go to jail.
Langston calls Madeline's mom, breaking the non-news to her. She's convinced her daughter is dead.
Cut to another trucker, driving down a dark highway. We see into the cab in back, where Madeline lies, bound and gagged, but alive. They pass a road sign: 13 miles to Las Vegas.
(To be continued Thursday on CSI....)
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