Patrick took two long, deep breaths, then pulled a shiny Glock pistol from his waistband. One of the soldiers stepped forward and took the gun.

“You’re crazy,” Patrick said, with a shake of his head. “Absolutely, batshit crazy.”

“I’m quite sane, actually,” Bill said, a sly grin flaring his meaty cheeks. “This isn’t some spur-of-the-moment decision. I’ve been planning this since the day I read Daniel’s email.”

“Daniel’s email?” Patrick asked, throwing up his hands. “What are you talking about?”

“June eleventh. We were at your house. We were getting ready to go to that banquet. You were in the shower, and I was finishing up work on the computer in your office. Lo and behold, in comes an email from Daniel.”

“You son of a bitch!” Patrick yelled, taking three quick steps toward Bill. Two soldiers stepped into his path, pointing their guns at Patrick’s chest.

“I can see why you’d be angry,” Bill said. “My keeping secret that your son was alive and well, but I had to. I couldn’t risk him bringing his cure back to the States. That’s why, in addition to your search-and-rescue team, I funded a search-and-rescue team of my own. Well, a search team, at any rate. They had slightly different instructions on what to do if they found Daniel.

“But sadly, my team couldn’t locate him either. Then when you spoke with Jordan Mae and realized exactly where Daniel had been headed and decided that you were going to find him yourself, I had to tag along. A few days into the mission, I took aside the soldiers and told them I’d pay each of them fifty thousand dollars if they helped me get rid of Daniel and his little discovery.”

“You planned on killing your godson?” Patrick asked, his voice raising three octaves.

“That he is, and I love him like a son. Just as I love you like a brother. But I love my position as CEO of the sixth largest pharmaceutical company in the world more. And that position would have been taken from me had Daniel’s superbacteria made it back to America.”

I was a bit confused. “Wouldn’t this superbacteria make you guys billions of dollars?”

I was surprised it was Patrick and not Bill who responded. Patrick said, “Native organisms in their original form can’t be patented. So we wouldn’t be able to patent the bacteria.”

“Couldn’t you patent the term autobiotics?” I asked. “Or make a bunch of autobiotic gummies or something?”

“Yeah, we could,” Daniel answered. “But it wouldn’t take long before another company got ahold of the strain of bacteria and began to replicate it. Within a couple years, there would be fifty companies selling the same product.”

“But that first year, when people found out they could be cured by your product—don’t you think you would make billions?”