When ELF members entrap them in the test site, Kenner and Sarah narrowly escape being struck by lightning. Meanwhile, Kenner and Sarah follow an ELF operative to Arizona, where the eco-terrorists are testing the creation of artificial lightning. Evans discovers a DVD of Drake discussing manipulating the presentation of scientific research to suit NERF’s intentions. In Part 3, “Angel,” and Part 4, “Flash,” Kenner tells Evans he is suspicious of Drake. As they recover, Kenner suggests to Evans that media coverage of global warming is deceptive. One traps Sarah and Evans in a deep ice crevasse, and they only barely escape. Kenner, Sanjong, Evans, and Morton’s assistant Sarah Jones attempt to stop the event, but they are thrown off by ELF operatives posing as researchers. In Part 2, “Terror,” ELF is planning to break off part of the Antarctic ice shelf with explosives, forming an enormous iceberg to dramatize the issue of global warming. After a NERF banquet, Morton crashes his car and is presumed dead, although his body is not found at the scene. Morton begins to doubt Drake and withholds funding for NERF. Drake is obsessed with promoting the theory of global warming as a catastrophe, in part to bolster the case. Drake and his team are preparing for a lawsuit filed by the Pacific island Vanutu against the United States, who it charges as responsible for the global warming causing rising sea levels that threaten the nation.

These include the philanthropist Morton, his lawyer Peter Evans, and NERF’s director Nicholas Drake. Researchers John Kenner and Sanjong Thapa, while tracking ELF, cross paths with associates of the National Environmental Research Fund (NERF). Later, these events all prove to be connected to the eco-terrorist group, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Part 1, “Akamai,” opens by describing seemingly unrelated events: the mysterious death of a researcher in Paris named Jonathan Marshall, and the purchase of industrial equipment in Malaysia.

State of fear by michael crichton