Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Episode 14.04 Acceptable Loss

Cragen returns to his office and begins unpacking his belongings. Benson arrives shortly after to welcome him back, but Cragen skirts the conversation and heads to the bullpen to address the squad. He greets the detectives and instructs them to keep going by the book for now, logging their hours and activities while they're still under the microscope. He thanks everyone for the support before returning to his office.

Lenny Dworkin, a businessman, exits the airport and finds his town car. He instructs the driver to take him to his hotel. On the way, the driver asks Lenny if he needs anything, and implies that he can find a prostitute if Lenny is interested, which he is. Later that evening, the driver arrives at Lenny's hotel with a prostitute in the back of the car. Lenny gets in and the driver speeds off.

While Lenny gets busy with the call girl in the back seat, the driver takes a swig from a bottle of vodka. He runs a stoplight in front of a speeding garbage truck. The garbage truck T-bones the town car, dragging it down the road. Later, the SVU squad arrives at the scene. The driver fled the scene, and both passengers are injured but still alive. Benson is confused as to why SVU was called to the scene of a car accident. Then she sees the barcode tattoo on the side of the prostitute's neck. This girl is someone's property.

Benson and Rollins talk to the prostitute from the accident, Pilar. Benson tries to tell Pilar that they're here to help her, but she's not interested in talking. Meanwhile, Fin and Amaro talk Lenny Dworkin, who says he doesn't know anything about the prostitute or the driver. So far the SVU squad has hit a dead end.

The squad locates the driver of the town car who fled the scene. Fin and Amaro bring him in for questioning, but the driver claims he didn't know the john or the prostitute. Benson decides to talk to Pilar again when she's being released from the hospital, but she still doesn't want to talk. Another prostitute, Sophia, arrives to give Pilar a ride home. Benson tries to convince Sophia to cooperate, but Sophia's not interested either. Before she can pursue it further, Benson gets a call.

A young woman's dead body has washed up on a nearby beach, and the SVU squad is called to the scene. Upon examination, they discover a barcode tattoo on her neck. It's the same tattoo they found on Pilar's neck. Fin and Amaro return to the driver, who is still in the interrogation room. This time, they threaten to tie him to the prostitution ring and the murder of the girl on the beach. Eventually, he gives them the name of his contact in the prostitution ring: Lou. The driver doesn't know anything else.

The detectives decide to organize a sting operation to break into the prostitution ring. Fin poses as a town car driver filling in for the driver. He meets Lou's son, Mikey, in a diner. That night, Fin responds to a call to pick up one of Lou's girls from the subway. The other SVU detectives follow behind in a van. Fin drops a prostitute, Anna, off at a hotel. She comes out later with a torn dress and a bruised face, and Fin insists on taking her home. Anna reluctantly agrees. When Fin drops her off, the detectives get set to raid the house.

The next morning, the detectives prepare to raid the house. Just before they breech the door, Cragen shows up with Lieutenant Alex Eames, from Homeland Security. Eames informs the squad that they've stumbled into a terrorism investigation and that raiding this house would jeopardize a national security operation involving forged visas. It looks like the detectives are stalled for now.

Later in a briefing room, Eames explains that Pilar's visa was forged by someone who also works with terrorist cells. If they raise any alarms around Pilar and the prostitution ring, it could tip of the terrorists and foil the operation. For now, they can't take down the prostitution ring. After the meeting, the squad tries to find another way to take down the ring without interfering with terrorism investigation.

Later that night, Fin, still posing as a driver, picks up Sophia and a john. Moments later, he's stopped by a police car, which turns out to be Amaro and Rollins disguised as traffic police. Sophia and the john weren't engaged in any illegal activity when the car was pulled over, so they leave the scene and the SVU squad strikes out again, but Fin thinks that Anna might be ready to crack.

The detectives set up a second sting operation. This time, Amaro poses as a john in a hotel room. Moments later, Anna, the prostitute from Fin's first night as a driver, shows up. The detectives spring on her, but not to arrest her. They're betting that she'll give them information in exchange for protection, and it was a good bet. Anna agrees to cooperate.

Back at the station, Anna identifies the dead body on the beach as another one of Lou's prostitutes. She tells the detectives that the girl was pregnant and that Lou's son, Mikey, was taking her to get an abortion. She decided to run, and Mikey killed her and threw her in the river. She also tells Benson that there are eight or nine other girls in the house, and that Sophia has her own room, but she's not sure why.

Lieutenant Eames interrupts the questioning to scold the detectives for interfering with her operation. She informs them that the second terrorist they've been waiting for has already arrived in the country and that they missed him. She blames the SVU squad for tipping off the terrorists. Cragen gives the order to raid the house and take down the prostitution ring.

The detectives raid the house. They pin Lou on the floor in the living room and find Mikey soaking in a hot tub in the backyard. They bring Lou, Mikey and the girls back to the station. Strangely, Sophia is nowhere to be found. Mikey gives up the location of the financial books, but Sophia's records are nowhere to be found either. She's not a prostitute. The detectives put the pieces together and realize that Sophia is one of the terrorists Eames is looking for.

Eames wants to report the findings to her superiors, but Benson convinces her to let SVU try to find Sophia first. They head to the hotel where Fin last saw Sophia. The detectives raid the room and find Sophia and her accomplice. Sophia tries to convince the detectives that she's just a call girl, but Eames wipes the fake barcode tattoo off of her neck.

Later, in the interrogation room, Eames and Benson question Sophia. At first Sophia is reluctant to say anything, but Eames uses her power of persuasion to convince Sophia to tell her story. She explains that U.S. drones bombed her village and murdered her father, and she came to the U.S. seeking revenge for her father's death.

After the interrogation, Eames and Benson grab a drink together. Eames explains that every terrorist has a story to tell, and it's her job to get them to tell it. When Benson questions her peculiar interrogation style, Eames says she learned it from her old partner. She reminisces about all the time she spent with her old partner and how she grew attached to him. It's a story that Benson knows all to well.