Fallout (Season 17, Episode 19)
Premise: A Russian émigré dies of military-grade ricin, and the case uncovers a ring trafficking young Russian women and a Moscow policeman searching for his missing daughter.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 19
- Detectives
- Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Det. Nina Cassady (Milena Govich)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Mark Ivanir as Nicolas Brezin, Michael Aronov as Karl Rostov, Daniel Oreskes as Consul General Andrei Karpovich, Margarita Malayeva as Nadia Brezin, René Ifrah as Alex Chambers
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Sonny Postiglione
Summary
The Investigation
“Fallout” starts with the ricin poisoning of Peter Rostov, a Russian-born businessman who collapses at home after a trip to Moscow. The CDC finds four times a lethal dose of military-grade ricin in his blood, probably swallowed on Friday night, and the FBI and a terrorism task force step in. Rostov had lied to his wife about when his flight landed, carried a young woman’s boarding pass and had his driver, Alex Chambers, start carrying a gun.
Chambers says he drove Rostov and the woman, Anna Sakalov, to the SoHo apartment of Rostov’s brother Karl. Rent payments lead to a Clinton apartment where the detectives find a brothel full of women trafficked from Russia. Anna says Rostov raped her and took her passport, and another woman, Valeri, says the brothers killed a girl named Nadia. Facing trafficking charges, Karl takes a 20-year deal and says he and Peter were at the Mirror Club that night.
Club video shows a man near their drinks: Nicolas Brezin, a former KGB officer now with the Moscow police, who arrived a week earlier. His motel room holds records for identifying the body of his daughter, Nadia. The detectives chase him, but he slips into the Russian Consulate, which refuses to hand him over.
The Trial
With the State Department unwilling to push and no extradition treaty to use, McCoy offers Consul General Andrei Karpovich a trade: Karl Rostov, once he testifies before a grand jury, in exchange for Brezin. Branch raises doubts, but Russian agents take Karl away on a kidnapping warrant. Brezin is charged with murder, and his lawyer, Danvers, asks why Brezin would kill the only person able to lead him to Nadia. Pressed, Valeri says the Rostovs ordered Chambers to shoot Nadia, and police find Nadia alive, locked inside his apartment.
At trial Nadia describes her captivity and a brief phone call to her father before she was dragged away. Brezin denies poisoning Rostov and says he only followed him. The prosecutors notice that the video shows Brezin waiting at the club before Rostov got there. Offered seven years, Chambers admits he told Brezin where to find Rostov, and adds that Brezin had sold Nadia to Rostov; Moscow police records show calls between the two men around the time she vanished.
Spoiler, the ending: Confronted, Brezin says Rostov, whom he had known since childhood, seized both of his daughters to make him cooperate and then made him choose which one to give up. McCoy offers first-degree manslaughter, and Brezin accepts on condition that Nadia never learns the truth. Nadia heads home to Russia, and McCoy skips drinks with colleagues to meet his own daughter.
Why it stands out
- With no extradition treaty available, McCoy swaps a trafficking defendant for a murder suspect sheltered in the Russian Consulate, after first securing the trafficker’s grand jury testimony for use at trial.
- Tennis Hall of Famer Billie Jean King makes a cameo as an arraignment judge.
- The final scene shows McCoy meeting his daughter, Rebecca, played by Jamie Schofield.