CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Janice Lemmon was still surprised that she was even here.

She thought it would be much more difficult to secure a conversation with Ash Pierce. If the LAPD didn't balk, surely the prisoner's lawyers would, either on their own or at her behest.

And yet here she was, standing at the nurses' station of the secure unit on Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's fifth floor, getting instructions on how to conduct herself in the patient's hospital room from the head of Pierce's security detail, Officer Brice Gaston, a guy in his early forties with a thick trunk, graying brown hair, and deep facial creases that suggested many years walking a beat.

"Don't approach her," Officer Gaston instructed. "There will be a chair on the wall across the room from Ash. You can sit there or stand in that general area, but no closer. Do not offer her anything to take or accept anything she offers. Do not agree to provide any service for her, not even a small favor. Got it?"

"Got it," Janice said. She wouldn't have done any of those things anyway but kept that to herself.

"And remember, consent was given for an interview, not an interrogation," Gaston said. "The terms of this meeting are clear. You are evaluating Ash, not trying to get a confession. And no recording is allowed. Are we clear?"

"We are," Janice said before asking a question of her own. "Officer Gaston, do you typically use first names to refer to prisoners that you're guarding, especially ones who are charged with multiple murders?"

Gaston looked slightly taken aback. "I see this woman every day. I'm just trying to be personable."

"Oh, I have no doubt about that," Janice said pleasantly. "I guess I'm just wondering if you and your team have perhaps become too close to the person you've been tasked with preventing from escaping or from doing harm to you or others. What do you think?"

Janice watched as Gaston glanced nervously at the other regular members of his guard team, a young male cop named Stoller, and a female officer named Michaelson. No matter how they replied, her query had already had the intended effect .

She wanted these officers to question whether they were too chummy with a murderer. That would serve two of her purposes. First they were more likely to keep a tight watch on Pierce, at least while Janice was here. And second, it would put them on their heels a little if she pushed Pierce harder than they might prefer.

"I don't think that's a concern, Ms. Lemmon," Gaston finally replied defensively. "We know how to do our jobs."

"Of course you," Janice replied warmly, as if she never had any doubt. "And not to be a pain, but it is Dr. Lemmon. I know there are so many of us around these parts, but a title is still a title, right, Officer?"

"My apologies, Doctor," Gaston said, now fully discombobulated, just as she liked. "Officer Michaelson will accompany you inside. If you have any questions, ask her. If she can't help, I will."

"Thanks so much," Janice said, adjusting her scarf around her neck to accommodate for the chilly hospital as she waited for Officer Michaelson to lead her in.

She made no mention of her credentials other than being a "doctor." They already knew that she was a psychiatrist. That was why she was here, after all. Gaston, at least, was probably also aware of her past work consulting for the LAPD and FBI in a profiling capacity. It would have been mentioned to him when explaining why she was qualified to talk to Pierce.

But she felt no need to refer to her other work. In fact, she wasn't permitted to. She'd signed documents many years ago that precluded her from ever discussing her employment at other, more clandestine organizations. But to her mind, it was that work that truly qualified her for this interview.

After all, before Ash Pierce became a hitwoman for hire, she had worked as an assassin for the CIA, and prior to that, did similar work for an elite military unit. Janice too had worked at the CIA, along with the NSA and DIA. But it was her time at the Central Intelligence Agency that was most relevant here.

Part of her work involved evaluating the truthfulness of terrorism suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Some people preferred waterboarding or sleep deprivation. That wasn't Janice's area.

She simply sat in rooms with captured combatants and, through an interpreter, asked questions. She was trying to determine the value of the prisoner. Were they really involved in past attacks? Did they know about new, upcoming ones? How high up were they in the chain of command? Sometimes they answered. Sometimes they stayed silent. Either way, she learned something.

In the end, she questioned a total of 41 suspects over eighteen months and concluded that 21 of them had no involvement in terrorist activity. Of the remaining twenty men, 12 were deemed to be low level operators in isolated cells without knowledge of larger plans. Five were found to be mid-level members of terrorist organizations, and two were determined to be high-level leaders.

There was one man whose potential involvement Janice could not make a definitive determination about. He was eventually released many years later. Janice heard through the grapevine that he had an unfortunate encounter with a bullet to the head while wandering through an outdoor market in Kabul. Janice couldn't help but wonder if Ash Pierce might have been involved in that incident. It sounded right up her alley.

Janice finally left the agency when higher-ups insisted on putting more "aggressive" interrogators in the room with her and the suspects. She told her supervisors that she couldn't glean any accurate information from these men when under such duress, but she was overruled, so she left the agency and moved on to help capture domestic criminals for the FBI and eventually, the LAPD.

The skills she'd honed back in her Agency days had served her well over the years. She hoped that they hadn't atrophied too much, as she suspected she would need all of them for this conversation.

"Are you ready, Dr. Lemmon," asked Officer Michaelson, an open-faced young woman with a warm smile and sandy blonde hair, who looked like a mark waiting to be played.

"Yes, dear," Janice said. "Lead the way."