[A Perfect Hatred 01] • End Times

"The end times are here."

A chance encounter with a skinhead carjacker leads U.N. spies Mai Fisher and Alexei Bukharin to research America's extreme right wing, a bleak world of militias, paramilitary compounds, and racist religion.

Then, the U.S. government requests The Directorate's assistance for a standoff with a religious cult in Killeen, Texas. There, Mai and Alexei not only make an enemy of the FBI's special agent in charge, but Mai also spots a young man among the protesters at the site, a man whose vacant expression reminds her too much of herself.

After the FBI reject their plan for a peaceful resolution, Mai and Alexei hunt the young man at gun shows around the country. To encounter him, Mai revives a persona from a mission that almost killed her, and Alexei searches for a paramilitary compound to infiltrate. They soon realize these homegrown extremists are serious--and dangerous. They want to dismantle the U.S. government and replace it with an autocracy straight out of their favorite dystopian novel.

Meanwhile, John Thomas Carroll, the man Mai spotted at Killeen, is at the end of his proverbial rope. No job, no prospects for the future, helpless to save the life of a child he loved, he wants to end his life--until he remembers a woman he met at a gun show.

Has Mai Fisher unknowingly given a terrorist a reason to live?