A couple's car is carjacked and the carjacker barely gets in, when a body falls onto it. Horatio (David Caruso) on the scene, looks up. Tripp (Rex Linn) explains the carjacker tried to run, but the body fell from the ficus. Walter (Omar Miller) says he was too big to have just fallen out of a tree. Horatio replies he didn't since the tops of the branches are sheared off. Horatio: "He fell from the sky." ME Tom (Christian Clemenson) determines there's no perimortum bruising and they'll be lucky if they can find the COD, he fell from terminal velocity, higher than a tree.
Calleigh (Emily Procter) says he was found in the middle of Miami airspace, so he's most probably a stowaway from a plane. They both refer to him as 'Icarus' who flew too close to the sun and got burnt. His bone marrow shows signs of osteoporosis but he's only in his 40's. ME Tom: "Either he's 100 or I can't say." He needs to ensure he's not crazy. Ryan (Jonathan Togo) thinks he could have fallen from a helicopter since it wasn't a commercial flight.. They have the tail number of the helicopter.
Beau (Flex Alexander) was the pilot of the helicopter and denies having seen the Vic before. Horatio says air traffic control has him flying the helicopter but he says it wasn't him, someone could have flown it and brought it back, which Ryan finds hard to believe. Horatio notices an imprint inside which appears to be from a knuckle. Ryan notices the Vic's knuckles are all shredded. ME Tom confirms his theory is reality. The blood and cells prove it. Zero gravity pulls on red blood cells into a doughnut shape and without zero gravity, they relax into spheres. Also calcium loss showed the Vic was in space less than 24 hours ago. He's an astronaut. Walter thinks he's an alien and that Tom's an alien too, covering the truth. Well he was right, there was a conspiracy, but not one involving an alien, something more sinister. Jesse (Eddie Cibrian) says he wasn't an astronaut but a space tourist.
Walter finds one company in Miami owned and operated by Keith Palmer (David Chisum). His ship is a Leer jet which he built himself. Ryan comments you pay $2 million and you get to space walk. Palmer identifies the Vic from the photo as Sam (Ted King) and he was on the last trip. (As if he didn't know.) Ryan notices micro-meteor damage, which was the clue. They returned last night and were debriefed. Horatio tells him he was the last one to see him alive as he doesn't tell him who else was on board.
Sam tells Janet (Claire Carey) his wife, that it takes 90 minutes to orbit the earth, on the disk he sent her. He didn't call her last night. Natalia (Eva Larue) asks why Janet didn't want to see him. She didn't want him going on the trip. Others on the disk include, Beau and Dominic Cross (Thad Luckinbill). Natalia recognized him, she likes his action movies. Tom cuts Sam open and removes his lung. The blood boiled out of his lungs and he calls Horatio, "That means your presence is requested." He died from space explosive decompression. Somehow he got outside of the ship. His body swelled to twice his size. He thankfully died from hypoxia before his heart exploded, as ME Tom puts it.
All three deny pushing him out of the ship. Dominic says he was asleep and Tripp, sarcastically asks he was asleep for 10 days? Beau says he was flying the ship and Sam got sucked out, that's the truth. Horatio: "You're not capable of telling the truth, Beau." No he wasn't and neither were the others. Dominic was concerned his fans would find out he was airsick. Horatio tells him a man lost his life. Which has no effect on him. Ryan asks how Sam ended up in the helicopter. Beau got rid of the body and was going to dump him in the Atlantic. SO if it was an accident, why lie about it. Since it wasn't and Ryan asks this very question. Palmer wanted to save his company.
Horatio tells him the ship is his CS. Ryan's going to cut it up as it's a piece of evidence. He loved saying that to Palmer and I don't blame him. Ryan will be gentle. Jesse tells Calleigh when he was little he pretended everything was a spaceship and now he's actually in one. He'd have paid two million for a ride without even thinking about it. Does Jesse have that much spare cash lying around. Calleigh replies she doesn't have that gene. Inside, Jesse thinks Sam would have had to open the hatch, but there's no buttons inside the airlock. Calleigh finds prints on the buttons, someone opened the hatch for him. The prints belong to Dominic. He denies it was him. Ryan mentions cases of astronauts getting cabin fever in orbit. Dominic claims Sam threatened him if he didn't help him on the spacewalk. Which cost extra and he couldn't afford another trip. Ryan asks if Sam was wearing the suit. Calleigh adds if the suit failed because of Dominic, then that's negligent homicide.
Horatio analyzes the suit with a radiation meter. If the suit was in space it should be covered in radiation. Walter sees it's picking up the same radiation that's barely on earth. There's blood on the suit, indicating Sam died on the ship. Walter luminols the suit, which was kept in the airlock. The blood matches Sam. Horatio says the solid proteins from the blood spatter created a timeline for them. Sam was attacked before the airlock was opened. Horatio to Walter: "You're going into space." With Jesse, who offers Walter airsickness pills beforehand. He refuses. His nickname in college was 'Iron Belly' .
Look Jesse's dream coming true, almost. Travers (Christopher Redman) asks Ryan why he's not in the "vomit Comet" that's why, cos of the name. But Horatio didn't send him. Travers found the residue in the tank was pure oxygen. It was the ship's airsupply and there was a hole in the tank from the micro-meteor. Ryan asks the equation to figure out the rate of a leak, Bernoullis equation. Travers is British but he's adjusted for American measures and hands Ryan a calculator. They had 12 minutes before the oxygen ran out so he's found a motive for Sam's murder.
Palmer tells Horatio they had air in the EVA suits. Horatio says someone decided there wasn't enough air for all of them. Horatio: "I don't need luck [to solve the case]." No, he's got evidence. Jesse and Walter float around in the plane in zero gravity, which Jesse loves. They use different tools to determine which one was the possible murder weapon; alternating between zero gravity. But no spatter flows from any of the weapon marks. Jesse notices the blood pools around the rubber body and doesn't leave it. Walter eventually throws up, giving them a clue to solving the case. Jesse calls him Iron Belly. He says they've been approaching it all wrong since the velocity's the same on earth and space. He tests the theory suing a rubber bullet.
Walter asks what's with Jesse pulling out guns all the time, That's true. Jesse hits his back when he fires the gun and hurtles backwards. Jesse determines Sam was shot. What were they doing with a gun onboard anyway, being prepared for all eventualities. The bullet was sucked out when the hatch was opened. Jesse refers to Newton's third law of motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So whoever shot Sam will have a bruise on him. It was Beau.
Palmer claims he had to make choices as there was only enough air for three of them. Beau has the gun in the flashback and Dominic saves himself by saying he's famous so he should shoot Sam. Sam tells them Palmer built it so he should be able to figure out a way to get back. Horatio tells them they're all guilty of murder and Horatio asks why Sam was killed? Beau replies it was either him or Dominic, since he and Palmer had to pilot the ship. Jesse says Sam never had a chance. Palmer had to bring back four so they couldn't push him out of the airlock. He couldn't let everyone die and Horatio says it wasn't his decision to make. Sam left a video journal for Janet. He was looking over Florida. The trip means something to him, because at the end of it he's coming home to her. Calleigh tells her Sam tried to save everyone. Janet says he would always say there was another way.
What a vicious and cruel bunch that lot were, only thinking of themselves when the chips were down and how easily they took a life to save their own sorry miserable asses. As for Palmer as Sam said, it's unbelievable he didn't have another emergency plan ready for such an outcome. Why did he take up two passenger if there only ever would be air enough for 3. Greed, pure and simple and how little human life meant to each of them. Beau doesn't have a job, Palmer doesn't have his company and his ship and Dominic no longer has his fame. Prison was too good for them. At least there were some light hearted moments along the way, with Jesse's dream of being on a ship and Ryan taking pleasure in taking the ship apart. A bit of a an unusual episode for CSI:Miami, but one still advocating that crime doesn't pay whether you're on earth or in orbit!
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