Adam locked his gaze with hers. “Hmm… Well, maybe we can trade secrets. You tell me what you know about my dead brother, and I’ll tell you about his project.”
Amy was assaulted with a flash of the photo of Ivan bound and gagged. She sat back on the couch and held Adam’s hand. “Are you sure you wanna know what Tariq told me?”
“Yeah. I’ve given it some thought, and I’m sure. Then at least Tariq won’t be able to use it against me, right? Knowledge is power, huh?”
“Okay.” Amy squeezed his hand supportively. “Well, basically Tariq told me that him and Ivan were lovers.”
Adam’s face didn’t flicker. Amy realised he’d make an excellent poker player.
“Right?” he said.
“And… Tariq showed me a photo of a guy who looked like Ivan who was bound and gagged. He said they played bondage sex games together. Asphyxiation. You know, strangling each other – that kind of thing.”
“Auto-asphyx…?”
“Yeah.”
Adam stared ahead of himself for a moment, saying nothing. Then he gazed at her and asked, “Do you think Tariq murdered my brother?”
Amy was taken a-back by the direct line of questioning. She did think it was possible, but she wasn’t a hundred percent sure of anything anymore, and she certainly didn’t want to accuse an innocent man of murder. Despite his blackmailing schemes, Tariq actually seemed gentle and harmless.
Amy decided to answer Adam’s question with one of her own. “Do you think Dylan knows more about this than he’s letting on?”
Adam shook his head. “No, I think Dylan would’ve told me if he knew anything. He’s been saying all along he’s got a gut-feeling that Tariq killed Ivan… Maybe his intuitions are right?”
Amy rubbed her tired eyes. “I’ll meet up with Tariq when we get back to the States as arranged. Maybe I can find out more.”
“Hmm…” Adam reached out and gently lifted her feet up onto his lap, then he started to massage them. This tender gesture melted Amy’s tension away; she sat back against the arm of the couch, and enjoyed the foot rub. His touch sent gloopy contentment up her legs, like sinking into a warm bath. But it was erotic as well as romantic. A pure smile of affection landed on Amy’s lips, as she admitted to herself that he was wonderful.
“I don’t want to put you in danger,” Adam said, as he massaged. “I’m still not happy about this plan.”
“I’ll be okay. You’ll be there watching my back. I know you won’t let anything happen to me. And, to be honest, Tariq seems… he just seems like an unhappy man who’s lost his lover. As far as I can tell he just wants their work back…”
Adam focused on kneading the sole of her foot with his strong fingers. Amy was still wearing her stockings, and her skirt was hitched up to her thighs – she knew it would be easy to turn this into a love-making session. He threw her an affectionate glance, which sizzled between her thighs, but Amy wasn’t prepared to let him get away with distracting her from fulfilling his side of the bargain.
“So what is this thing he and Ivan were working on?” she asked.
Adam sighed. “Alright. But I need to know this won’t go any further than these walls?”
“Adam, you have my word. I just want to know what’s going on. Surely I deserve an explanation now that Tariq’s involved me in this whole thing? And Grafton Techs, too. I mean, I don’t love my job, but I don’t want the company getting involved in anything dodgy.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He gripped her foot and gazed intensely into her eyes. “Okay, it’s a perpetual motion machine – an engine that runs by its own steam, without any need for an external source.”
Amy frowned. “Isn’t that impossible? Against the laws of physics?”
“That’s what I thought. But Ivan and Tariq have cracked it somehow. It’s got the potential to – well quite frankly, to revolutionise humanity. No more oil or coal would be needed. No more struggling and toiling… But Tariq wants to do bad things with it. That’s why Ivan started to distance himself from him. Oh, and there was a woman they were both in love with – you know how it is. They fell out, he went bad… Now he wants world domination.”
Amy chuckled. “Sounds like a bad James Bond plot.”
“I know. I was just joking about world domination, but I think Tariq wants to sell it to the highest bidder. That won’t necessarily be the American government or even the Europeans. I think he might be in communication with some Russians. It all happened so fast, but I think that’s what Ivan said before he… you know. Died.”
Amy nodded sadly. This wouldn’t be the first time a genius inventor had been murdered for his invention.
“So there you go,” Adam said, resuming the foot massage.
Amy closed her eyes to enjoy it, as her mind tried to process all this information. She suddenly realised something. “Wait, did you say they were both in love with the same woman?”
Adam chuckled cynically. “Well, that’s how it seemed to me at the time. But now after what you’ve just said… I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”