Hubert and Girwidz discover the body of a strangely dressed, bearded man at the edge of the forest; he has no identification on him. A public appeal for information reveals that he is the renowned attorney Fabian Fritz, who lives by the lake with his wife, Eva Fritz.

When Hubert and Girwidz try to break the news of his death to his wife, however, they discover that the couple has sold their house and transferred their money to the Children of the Five Lakes. Investigations reveal that this is a cult-like community that also owns the forest where the body was found. So did Fabian Fritz want to leave the group, and was he killed because of it?

A visit to the Children of the Five Lakes reveals an idyllic, small world. The widow, Eva Fritz, accepts her husband's death with surprising detachment, arguing that since he wanted to leave the community, he was doomed to die anyway.

It soon becomes clear that the cult, led by the charismatic guru Noah, is preparing for the end of the world. Hubert, of course, considers Noah a charlatan and his followers completely insane, but after returning to the precinct, he finds a handwritten plea for help in his jacket pocket—someone at the farm must have slipped it to him...