German judge Elke Seeberg's orderly world turns upside-down when a terrorist bomb explodes in a Berlin bus and the federal police come bursting through her door: Allegedly her teenage daughter played a part in the attack and is now on the run. What follows is a Kafkaesque nightmare of illegal round-the-clock surveillance by the Secret Service, public denunciation, and the collapse of her career. But when Federal Agent Buch helps her put together some pieces of the puzzle on her own, the fear of terrorists quickly gives way to the paranoia against an all-powerful state encroaching on all her rights.