After a fire, the body of Josef Gerlach, who lived in constant conflict with environmental activists, is found. Ellen Lucas and her team take up the investigation. Gerlach farmed large areas of grain with his brother Reinhold. A mobile phone video shows an argument with the young activists David Buske and Marie Bacher. Angry, they demonstrated against the poisoning of the fields. Together with their classmate Paul Krenn, the three form the "New World" group, which advocates a radical change in agriculture. Lucas and Tom Brauer take on the three high school graduates, but they deny having anything to do with the arson. A look at the finances shows that the Gerlach farm is heavily indebted, and Josef Gerlach had taken out a high term life insurance policy, which could be a motive for Reinhold.
The next morning, Paul Krenn is found dead in the woods – his neck broken. Lucas blames himself. Did she miss something? She questions Marie and David, who are shaken but pretend not to know. Traces of an off-road vehicle are discovered at the crime scene. Since Reinhold Gerlach drives such a car, Tom looks him up. He finds him drunk. Even if the evidence against him is increasing, Lucas does not believe that Gerlach was the perpetrator. She stays close to the young people and finds out that there was a fourth member of the "New World" group: Hanna Manz. Since a bicycle accident, she has been in a wheelchair and now goes her own way. She states that she left the New World group when she became too extremist.
Lucas and Judith only found out about an internship that the now dead student was doing at the pharmaceutical company NeoX from Paul's father. Did the teenagers have a secret plan? And was Paul perhaps a spy in the company? Lucas and Judith interview Martina Thiel, founder of NeoX, and learn that the company is about to launch a revolutionary new compound, phytosate. According to Thiel, it works in a similar way to glyphosate, but has no negative impact on the environment. Unlike his colleague Thiel, Dr. Lammert, who had the intern Paul under him, was shocked by his death. When Marie and David also disappeared the next day, Lucas was alarmed.