Page 103 of Her Unflinching Warrior (Omega Sky)
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“Boys, go to your rooms.”
“But, Dad,” Felix whined.
“Now,” Mike said.
Jada watched as both of Gideon’s nephews trudged out of the room. Mike had already set her up at the home computer in the corner of the family room. It was an older Dell, but it would get the job done. She could hear something coming from Gideon’s phone, but she didn’t have time to care. Everybody needed to be hearing everything at the same time.
Rylie had set up a Zoom call in a joint e-mail. She clicked on it and immediately saw everybody but Dex Evans. Kostya was on the same screen as Lark.
“I’m doing a screen share now, so we can all watch whatever message Kendall has for Gideon. I think this is his final big play.”
“This is it, huh?” she heard Ryker whisper behind her.
Kostya must have called him to come over to Mike’s houseshe thought.
She turned around and besides having Gideon on one side of her and Mike on the other, Ryker and Nolan were behind her. She moved the monitor so everyone could see.
“Everybody ready?” she asked.
After everybody either nodded or said yes, she changed the view on Zoom so everyone could see her internet window on her screen, then clicked on the web address. They could all still hear one another.
“Check it out, this is set up as a pre-post,” Jada pointed out.
“Wait a sec,” Lydia said. “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? Has he configured this so that it can go up on social media and potentially all news media and streaming channels?”
“That’d be pretty tough to do,” Clint said.
“But doable,” Gideon said over Jada’s shoulder. “We all could do it with enough time, and this bastard has been planning this for God knows how long.”
“Yeah,” Kane sighed.
“Look at the clock on the post. It’s set to eastern standard time. We’ve got ten-and-a-half hours before it is set to go live.” Gideon gritted out the words.
“Let me play the video,” Jada said quietly, aching for Gideon, but knowing that she needed to focus on the task at hand.
Kendall Douglas came on screen. It was the best he’d looked since Jada has been introduced to the man. She was positive he was wearing make-up. Beside him was Jenny Sims, and Jada was almost blinded by her white teeth and cleavage.
“Check out that green screen backdrop,” Rylie noted. “It looks like someplace you’d find in Dubai.”
“Hello, my fellow Americans,” he started to talk. “I’m so glad we get to have this time together. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kendall Douglas.”
Jenny scooted even closer to him and whispered into his ear.
“Oh yes, and this is the lovely Jenny Sims.” He glanced down at her and shook his head. “She has her uses, but this is my show. Now, I’m sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled bit of mind-numbing mush, but this is important—at least it is if you, or someone you know and like, lives near water and wants to continue living.” He gave a fond smile to the camera.
“Did you know the United States has over ninety thousand dams? I didn’t think so. What do they teach in our schools these days? Anyway, I have the capability to unleash four hundred and eight of them at my fingertips. Again, let me dumb that down. By unleash, I mean, open them up and make the water come out. That would be bad, right?”
He chuckled and held up his phone. “I created my own application called ‘I don’t give a dam.’ Clever, huh? Anyway, this app is only available to me. And there are a couple of different settings. The one I like the best is where I will give you an example of what I can do. After all, why would I want to destroy all four hundred and seven when I could just destroy one, give you an example of my power, and get rich?”
He sighed. “Jenny, hold my phone for a moment, and for the love of God, don’t press any buttons. I need to make something clear to everyone, especially all those one-percenters.”
He handed off the phone to Jenny, who immediately giggled and slipped it into her cleavage.
“Now I’m not blackmailing the government. That’s so tedious and usually takes an act of Congress to get anything done, and I hate waiting... So, I’m coming directly to you, the people who care.”
His grin stretched from ear to ear. “I’m thinking that many of you little fellows might want to donate five or ten bucks to save your ass. And then there are the one percenters; you know, the poor little rich boys who like to send rockets to the moon. Maybe they should donate a little more, don’t you think? After all, they’ve made so much off your backs, shouldn’t they pony up some to save their fellow Americans?”
