Walk the Wire

The sixth installment of the Memory Man series opens in the remote oil-rich plains of North Dakota, where a professional hunter named Hal Parker discovers the naked, mutilated body of a woman while tracking a wolf. The corpse bears a Y-incision, the signature cut of a forensic autopsy, sutured closed across the chest. The skull has been sawed open and the brain removed.

FBI agents Amos Decker and Alex Jamison are dispatched from their Washington task force to investigate. Decker, a former professional football player whose career-ending brain injury left him with hyperthymesia (perfect recall) and synesthesia (a neurological blending of sensory pathways), arrives with no explanation for why the Bureau has been called in on what appears to be a local case. His partner Jamison, a former journalist turned FBI special agent, shares his frustration. Decker suspects the answer lies with the victim rather than the killer.

The victim is identified as Irene Cramer, a young woman who worked as a teacher at the Brothers' Colony, a communal Anabaptist religious community near the town of London, North Dakota. The local coroner, Walt Southern, determines she was killed by a single knife wound to the heart. Detective Joe Kelly, the town's sole detective, reveals that Cramer also appeared on an escort website. Her apartment is barren of personal effects, her car is missing, and no record of her life before London can be found.

Decker unexpectedly encounters his brother-in-law Stan Baker, who works in the local oil fields and reveals he and Decker's sister Renee are divorcing. Baker is dating Caroline Dawson, daughter of Hugh Dawson, the town's wealthiest businessman. The encounter forces Decker to confront how thoroughly he has withdrawn from family since the murders of his wife Cassie and daughter Molly years earlier.

The investigation expands through interviews at the Brothers' Colony and a flophouse where Cramer met men. Susan Ames, the Colony tailor, reveals she knew about Cramer's double life and that Cramer received a disturbing note and seemed "resigned" before her death. Decker also visits the Douglas S. George Defense Complex, an Air Force installation adjacent to the Colony. Colonel Mark Sumter is evasive and uncooperative, and Decker notices a puzzling row of ambulances outside a facility Sumter claims is perfectly safe.

Reviewing Southern's autopsy report, Decker discovers a single buried sentence noting that Cramer's stomach and intestines were sliced open, with no photographs taken. He examines the body himself and confirms the cuts were hurried, consistent with someone searching for an object the victim had swallowed. He theorizes the staged autopsy was designed to disguise this search.

A second murder follows. Pamela Ames, eldest daughter of Colony members Milton and Susan Ames, is found shot dead at Parker's home, dressed provocatively. Parker has vanished. Decker examines the lividity on Ames's body, the pattern of blood pooling that occurs after death and can reveal whether a body has been moved. The evidence shows Ames was dressed in those clothes postmortem. Decker concludes Ames was the real target: She likely went to Parker seeking information about Cramer's death, and the killer targeted both to prevent them from sharing what they knew.

The case turns dangerous when someone tries to assassinate Decker with an incendiary round. A covert government operative named Will Robie saves his life and tells Decker that powerful interests are converging on London. Robie provides a special communication device.

Decker traces a connection between Cramer and Brad Daniels, a World War II veteran in his 90s living in a nursing home in Williston, where Cramer previously worked as a physical therapist under a false name. Daniels served at the London Air Force Station (AFS) for decades. Through military insignia on Daniels's cap, Decker discovers that the facilities where Daniels served were all involved in developing chemical and biological weapons. These programs were officially halted by President Nixon in the late 1960s and all stockpiles ordered destroyed. Decker concludes the London facility was originally built for weapons production, not radar, and that the stockpile was buried on land the Air Force later auctioned rather than destroyed.

Robie infiltrates the Air Force station and discovers a secret prison: men on gurneys loaded into ambulances and high-level visitors arriving by private jet. His superior, a senior intelligence official known as Blue Man, confronts the conspirators in Washington. The installation has been converted into an unauthorized detention facility for enemy combatants, run by a private contractor called Vector at exorbitant cost. Blue Man ensures the prison is shut down and those responsible face prosecution.

Blue Man also reveals Cramer's true identity. Her mother was a Russian double agent working for an American intelligence agency, killed during a botched mission in front of eight-year-old Irene. The government gave the child a new identity. When Cramer's fingerprints entered the FBI system after her murder, alarms sounded across the Bureau, explaining the federal interest.

The threat becomes immediate when Decker connects a warning Cramer gave to Judith White, a Colony farmer, about crops grown near the facility with the absence of workers at the All-American Energy Company, a drilling operation on the auctioned land. Baker, who had earlier mentioned an airman named Ben Purdy who spoke of a "ticking time bomb" at the base, helps Decker assess the site. The drilling is far too shallow for oil, and a vent pipe attached to the drill hole is inconsistent with any legitimate operation. Monitors show the drill has pierced a large underground structure and pressure is spiking, meaning buried weapons are being drawn to the surface. Baker devises an emergency fix: Jamison feeds a water hose into the pipe while Decker hand-cranks water from a tank, creating a temporary seal until a concrete truck arrives to block the release permanently.

Decker identifies Purdy as the mastermind. Rather than reporting the buried weapons, Purdy exploited overseas conferences in Qatar and Jordan to contact foreign interests willing to pay enormous sums to undermine American energy independence. Purdy confirms this when he captures Decker, Jamison, and Robie, but Robie picks their locks using hidden tools and they fight free. Robie kills Purdy with a thrown iron spike when Purdy holds Jamison at gunpoint.

Separately, Decker solves the local murders. A jade earring found in Caroline Dawson's private room leads him to Liz Southern, the coroner's wife, who has been in a secret romantic relationship with Caroline. Southern killed Cramer after Cramer witnessed the couple together, then cut Cramer open to retrieve something Cramer had swallowed. She killed Ames, who learned about the relationship from Cramer, and abducted Parker when he recognized her tire tracks at the body dump site. She blackmailed her husband Walt into fudging the autopsy reports, driving him to die by suicide. She poisoned Stuart McClellan, Hugh Dawson's chief business rival, with tetrodotoxin, a rare neurotoxin found in puffer fish, then murdered Hugh Dawson by rigging a shotgun with twine and forging a suicide note, all to secure Caroline's inheritance for their life together. Blood spatter on Southern's blouse proves she was in the room when the shotgun fired. Cornered, Southern throws a grenade and attempts to flee with Caroline as a hostage. Shane McClellan, Stuart's son and a former Army Ranger, kills Southern with a single rifle shot.

In the aftermath, Shane, who inherits his father's businesses, asks Kelly and Caroline to help him build London's future. On the flight home, Robie suggests Decker find a way to process what he carries beyond work. Sitting by the Anacostia River, Decker takes out the photograph of Cassie and Molly, then calls Renee and tells her he will come to visit.