The Security Operator stepped aside and waved her past. Kate nodded, and walked down to the door. She knocked on it, and heard Paul Turner’s voice call out immediately.

“It’s open,” he called. “Come in, Kate.”

She pushed open the heavy metal door, walked into the room, and frowned. The Director was in his usual position, sitting in the chair behind his desk, but he looked pale, almost ill; there were bags beneath his eyes, his skin was waxy, and he was looking at her with an expression she didn’t like.

It looked like pity.

“Sir?” she said, as she stopped in front of the desk. “Is everything OK?”

Turner shook his head. “No, Kate,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s not.”

She felt her heart accelerate. “What is it, sir?” she said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s your father, Kate,” said Turner. “He’s in hospital in Lincoln. In intensive care.”

Cold spread through her; she felt it race down her spine and out to the tips of her fingers.

“What happened to him?” she heard herself ask.

The Director fixed his gaze on hers. “He was shot, Kate. Last night.”

Her frown deepened with incredulity, and she fought back the sudden urge to laugh. “Shot?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“We don’t have any details yet. Two council workers pulled him out of the Lincoln canal and gave him CPR. They saved his life.”

“But … you’re sure he was shot?”

“Yes,” said Turner.

“Why?”

“That’s all we know, Kate. But SSL is controversial. It’s possible they have enemies.”

“I have to go to him,” she said. The words formed automatically, seemingly without input from her brain; she was staring at the Director in a state of complete shock, her body and mind frozen solid.

Turner nodded. “Of course you do,” he said. “There’s a car waiting in the hangar.”

An hour later, a black SUV pulled up outside Lincoln General Hospital.

Kate looked up at the tall concrete building, suddenly unable to move; she had spent the drive from the Loop ordering herself to stay calm, to assess the situation and put her personal feelings aside until she knew that her dad was OK, but as she stared at the hospital, all of her self-admonishments were forgotten.

“Lieutenant Randall?” asked her driver, peering round from the front seat. “This is it. We’re here.”

Kate stared helplessly back at him. Then Larissa’s voice appeared in her head, warm but firm.

Snap out of it. You can do this. You have to do this. You know you do.

“All right,” she said.

“I’ll be two minutes away,” said the driver. “Let me know when you need extraction.”

She nodded, pushed open the car’s door, and got out. For a moment, her legs trembled so violently beneath her that she was sure she was going to fall, but she steadied herself, took a deep breath, and walked towards the entrance of the hospital.

Kate stood in the doorway of a room on the third floor, staring at the occupant of its only bed.

She was not prone to unnecessary self-criticism; she knew that she was smart, and capable, and would have disagreed vehemently with anyone who suggested otherwise. But as she stared at her father, she felt, for the first time in many years, like the little girl she had been, small and weak and scared. She wished she was wearing her uniform; despite the Glock 17 tucked into her belt, her jeans and T shirt made her feel like a civilian, and added to her feeling of helplessness as she stared at the bed.

Her father looked like he was dead.

He wasn’t – the steady beeping of the machines attached to his body were testament to that – but his skin was almost translucent, and had the dull, plastic sheen of a waxwork. His arms and chest were covered with needles and sensors, multicoloured wires rose from him in a tangled web, and a thick wad of bandages covered his left shoulder. She started to cry, furious with herself but entirely unable to stop her tears; it wasn’t fair that her father was clinging to life in a hospital bed, for no other reason than trying to make the world a little bit better, to offer help to people who had seen the dark underbelly of the world. And in the back of her mind, a voice was whispering the painful, inarguable truth over and over again.

This is your fault. If you had said no to Blacklight, if you had just gone home when you had the chance, he wouldn’t be here. He would never have been dragged into Albert Harker’s crusade, and never would have founded SSL. None of this would have happened if you had just gone home.

Kate blinked her tears away and took a tentative step into the room. She had talked to the doctor in charge of her father’s case at the nurse’s station, who had confirmed that he had been shot once in the shoulder; the bullet had fractured his clavicle as it passed through, and exited just above his armpit, which was the good news. The bad news was that her dad had spent an unknown amount of time in cold, dirty water, long enough for him to have technically drowned. He had been revived by the council workers who had called the ambulance the night before, and there was no indication that he had stopped breathing for long enough to cause brain damage; there was no cranial swelling, and they had decided not to put him into an induced coma. But he was weak, and hypothermic, and an infection of the bullet wound was almost certain, given the canal water that had filled it when it was open and raw. He was on a precautionary antibiotic drip, and being monitored for any changes in his temperature or vital signs. The doctor’s final assessment had been that her father had been very, very lucky indeed, a viewpoint that was hard for Kate to accept as she looked at him.

She took another step, and another, until she was standing beside the bed. She reached out, gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and realised with sudden, blinding clarity that she would do anything in return for him being OK. If he woke up and asked her to quit Blacklight and move back to Lindisfarne, if he made her promise to turn her back on her friends and the life she had made for herself, she would agree without hesitation.

Anything, as long as he was all right.

A low groan emerged from his lips. Kate let go of her dad’s hand and stared at the monitoring screens, preparing to press the CALL button on the wall above his head if she saw even the slightest change in the readings. She watched for long, agonising seconds, until she was sure that nothing was happening, and turned back to look at him. His eyelids were fluttering, and as she leant in closer, they opened as slowly as the sliding doors of the Loop’s hangar. His eyes rolled, then locked on her face.

“Dad?” she whispered. “Can you hear me, Dad?”

“Kate …”

Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “Yeah, Dad. It’s me. I’m here.”

“Where …”

“You’re in hospital,” she said. “You’re fine, though, you’re going to be absolutely fine. I promise.”

He stared at her with apparent incomprehension. Then his eyes sharpened, and the ghost of a frown creased his forehead.

“Not here …” he whispered.

Kate leant in closer. “What do you mean, Dad? What’s not here?”

“Not … safe … here …”

Her heart thudded in her chest. “From who, Dad?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and reassuring. “Not safe from who?”

His eyes closed, and for a long second she thought he had fallen back to sleep. Then they opened again, and there was far more of the man she loved in them; they looked like the eyes of her dad.

“Night Stalkers,” he whispered. “Get me out … of here … not safe.”

“Did the Night Stalkers do this to you?” she asked.

He nodded; the movement was almost imperceptible, but she saw it.

“Who are they?” she demanded. “Tell me, Dad.”

His eyes closed again. She waited again, but after a long, silent minute, his breathing deepened, and she realised he was asleep. Kate stared at him for a long moment, then backed away from the bed, her heart racing.