Fifty ATF agents raid a remote compound outside Waco, Texas, at dawn to execute search and arrest warrants. The search warrant identifies two .50-caliber Browning Machine Guns; the arrest warrant names Jesus Christ. The ATF agents don't make it to the front doors.

Ninety miles south in Austin, Professor John Bookman reads a letter from an old woman whose daughter took her two young girls to live in a religious cult six years before. Her daughter wrote that the End of Days is near. She fears they might drink the Kool-Aid. She begs Book to save her granddaughters. The cult inhabits a massive compound called the Garden of Eden outside Waco.

Book and his intern travel to the compound intent on bringing the girls out peaceably, only to find the Feds there first—and to learn that peace is not an option.