The House That Graft Built: Greetings Series, #1

By Steve Stranov

Deena Justin leads a low-key life as a staffer for a recently elected US congressman from Nevada. She'll soon find out she's been tossed into a storm of political corruption, backstabbing, and revenge. They'll soon find out they messed with the wrong woman.

Politicians are corrupted by millions of dollars from rich individuals and powerful corporations. check

Extremism and gridlock have brought the government to a standstill. check

"Citizens United" is like a voodoo curse on ethics and dark money is its witch's brew. check

Congressional ethics guardrails have been swept away by court rulings. check

The Federal Election Commission and the IRS are hamstrung by politics and helpless to enforce even the most basic rules. check

Public trust in Congress is at a historic low. check

Sound familiar? 

In the United States of the "Greeting" series, there is still hope.

In this first book, Deena Justin's life is turned upside down when she is abruptly fired her from her job as district director by Kevin Fortuna, Chief of Staff for Nevada Congressman Sherman White. Fortuna's reasons are trumped up and his real motives murky. Later she finds that her congressman had been bought and paid for by Kobel Excavating in a scheme to get billions of dollars in contracts at the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage site. Her appeals to the broken congressional ethics system are fruitless, but prompt Kobel and his operatives to strike back. The vengeful billionaire and a ruthless ex-sheriff are now on her heels. Teamed up with a wealthy and wily boyfriend, Deena faces personal ruin and increasing danger as she pursues her newfound passion for cleaning up corruption in politics. The discipline and self-defense skills she learned in Krav Maga become much more than a hobby. Action, drama, and romance follow Deena on these first steps of her journey to change a nation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olde Friends Press
• Release date: Mar 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734700213

Book preview

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1 - A Bad Day

Deena Justin arrived at the Carson City office of Congressman Sherman White on Monday morning, a half hour after her usual time. Her long-awaited appointment was at nine-thirty. The petite thirtysomething woman exited her car and checked herself in the reflection from a window in the converted storefront that comprised the district office. A woman with striking natural features set off by minimalist dark makeup looked back at her. The look was strictly professional, a black pantsuit and purse, simple earrings and necklace, and middling heels that added a couple of inches to her five feet - four, slim frame. Her black hair flowed to her shoulders, blown about a bit in the warm September breeze. A lock of hair partially covered the left side of her face, giving her an aura of dark mystery that contrasted with her present expression of grim determination. Satisfied, she strode purposefully to the glass office door.

She was the district director for White, who represented the Second District of Nevada, including about a third of the state and its capitol, Carson City. Her job was to be the face of the congressman in the district while he was away in Washington and with it came responsibility for managing the local staff and office.

Seven staffers worked in the office and nominally reported to her. The full-time security staffer who nearly always traveled with White was there this morning, along with Deena’s boss, the chief of staff for the congressman. As she entered, it took only seconds to perceive that something was in the air. Conversation got muted and everyone seemed to get very interested in their computer screens when she walked in. The greeting from her close friend Laura Dingle, her staff assistant, lacked its usual cheerfulness, and she did not stick around to chat about their weekends as was typical on Monday morning. Mysteriously, before she walked away, Laura leaned in close and said, Remember, D, no matter what happens, I got your back.

Deena thought that was strange, but she shoved it out of her mind, as there was important business to attend to. Months before, she received a briefing in preparation for a political meet and greet event that resulted in her congressman’s embarrassing public confrontation with an obvious enemy. The aide who went through the attendance list swore up and down that there was no hint of bad blood between Michal Chudak, the potential donor, and Congressman White. He said that Chief of Staff Kevin Fortuna verbally cleared the list before the event. Since then, Deena had seen a gradual decline in her influence in her office, to the point that she did not even have a voice in hiring and firing of people who would end up working for her. When it became clear that lower level staffers were not responsible for the bad briefing, Deena requested a one-on-one meeting with Fortuna, who spent most of his time in Washington. The meeting had been delayed several times already when she called the congressman to force the issue. It was time to get the cards on the table.

Fortuna, called Fort by the staff, had been connected to the super PAC that orchestrated the congressman’s election, the Silver State Prosperity Alliance. He was hired soon after the election, and lately seemed to be making an effort to clear out many of the leftovers from the local campaign committee that made up the interim staff. It seemed to Deena that, for whatever reason, he wanted a staff beholden primarily to him and only indirectly to the congressman. She long suspected that the only reason she was still in her job was her reputation as a well-connected, handpicked representative of the party. White was a Republican candidate and the local party had provided the boots on the ground for the general election. Ousting her without cause would raise hell in the next election cycle.

Fortuna’s office door was closed, which was unusual. An abrupt Enter was the response to her knock. Inside she found Fortuna with the security staffer, Walt Herring, a Fortuna hire. Herring spoke first.

Ms. Justin, we have new security policies in place. All staffers with CCWs are required to leave their firearms in personal lockers installed over the weekend. For now, please give me your weapon and I’ll return it to you when you leave today.

Deena had a concealed carry permit for years and carried a revolver for self-defense.

My weapon is in my purse and locked in my desk, Walter, she responded.

She had tagged Herring as an arrogant prick on his first day on the job. He liked to throw his weight around with the staff by chewing people out for violations of nonsensical security rules, known only to him. Although he outweighed the diminutive Deena by a hundred and fifty pounds and was a foot taller, his paunch and his doughy complexion spoke volumes about his fitness for his job. His affectation for displaying his sidearm to everyone around to reinforce his authority was a standing joke among the staff. Even now he sat with his sport coat carefully arranged so she could see the gun.

Herring was a former elected sheriff of a rural Nevada county. His electoral opponent, a retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s sergeant, had soundly beaten him in his last election bid after an incident involving a carload of Mexican immigrants. They had been roughed up, jailed, and turned over to ICE on his orders. Two of them turned out to be US citizens and one of them had an uncle on the Nevada Supreme Court. Only a seismic event like that scandal could ever have elected a California Democrat in that county.

Okay, Ms. Justin. See that it stays there until you go home.

Herring could barely conceal a slight smirk at these last words. He made no move to leave the room.

By now, Deena felt a rising sense of dread, but she remained outwardly calm.

Well, Deena, you asked for this meeting. Let’s get to it. Fortuna said.

Fort, I need to get to the bottom of a problem that came up at the Carson City Republican’s Club a few months ago. I was briefed by a staffer who left out the fact that the congressman had serious heartburn with a particular donor. The staffer told me you signed off on this briefing. I want to know why.

While meeting with constituents was part of her job, White also required her to know the influential people at local events and introduce him to the all-important donors. Conversely, she was to run interference with unfriendly press or people who might make him look bad. The task required that her staff review likely attendees and provide her with a briefing on any she didn’t know.

And what would be the name of this individual? Fortuna asked.

Chudak, Michal Chudak.

Well Deena, I have here the list of identified attendees at the event, with my signature. It pre-dates the event. Chudak’s name is clearly shown as blacklisted. You failed in performing your duties, and now we know why.

He picked up a stack of eight-by-ten color photos from his desk and handed them to her. They showed her and Michal Chudak at Elko Pasta in Reno in earnest conversation. Then they showed her head on Michal’s shoulder and a passionate kiss next to her car. She tried to mask her shock at the invasion of her privacy, but she hadn’t even gotten to the second photo before she smelled a setup.

What I do in my private life is none of your goddam business, she said, hotly. The meet-and-greet was the first time I met him. I asked the congressman if he minded my seeing him again, and he said no, as long as I didn’t discuss office business or bring him here.

That’s ridiculous. The congressman had a known issue with the guy, and you let him get close enough for an embarrassing encounter. He told me he gave you specific instructions to stay away from Chudak, so he even gave you a second chance. You are derelict in your duty and are romantically involved with a political opponent. You’re fired, Ms. Justin. Julie has your final check. Get your gear and get out. Chief Herring will escort you out.

I want to see the congressman, she said.

No chance of that. I have the final word on who gets to see him and I know damn well he doesn’t want to see you, ever again. Anyway, he’s in Washington. Since you’re a constituent, you can send a letter or an email. It’ll be treated like any other.

Deena rose abruptly from her chair and put her hands on Fortuna’s desk. I get it, Fort, she said. You set this up to have plausible deniability with the local Party over canning me. I’ve been dealing with the state chairman and nearly every Republican campaign staffer in Nevada for years. They know me and they know what I’ve done. You are killing off the congressman’s re-election chances next year. You’re not going to get away with this-

Chief, Fortuna interrupted, that sounds like a threat. It’s time to show the former director to the door.

The hulking ex-sheriff hauled himself out his chair and unnecessarily grabbed Deena’s arm to twist it behind her back. He assumed that he could easily overcome the much smaller woman and frog march her out the door, setting the narrative in the office for her firing. Overconfident, he was too far away for his control to be effective and Deena twisted away from him by stepping forward with her opposite foot, and turning with a second step. That broke his grip.

Deena drove forward with her left arm into his armpit, on his right side where he wore his firearm. She pulled his elbow back into her torso with her right hand and then grabbed his wrist by the fingers with her both hands, bending it back toward her forearm in a painful gooseneck submission grip. The pain caused Walter to go up on his toes to relieve the pressure. Deena opened a gap to his side and rotated while turning his hands towards his body and to his front. She was now behind him and could lead him anywhere by the grip. He briefly tried to flail his other arm across his stomach to his weapon and she pulled back on his bent wrist until he cried out in pain. She pulled him back and down until his ear was near her lips.

She whispered, If you try to reach for your gun again, Walter, I’ll break your wrist. Then she said much louder, My cell phone is recording this meeting and your assault. I was leaving peacefully and I’m within my rights to defend myself.

She held on to the grip with her left hand and reached down with her other hand to pluck his gun from its holster. So I’m taking your weapon for safekeeping. You walk with me and don’t try to turn around and I’ll leave here with no one getting hurt.

Deena stuffed the gun in the waistband of her slacks, under her blazer. She had seen Fortuna reaching for his phone, probably with thoughts of dialing 911 running through his mind. When he heard about the cell phone record, that idea evaporated. With the audio, the bad press from this incident would cover every paper in Nevada for days. Neither the congressman nor his other, unofficial employers would be amused and both he and Herring could be in serious legal trouble.

Meanwhile, Deena had a passing thought about the possibility of Fortuna having a weapon in his desk, but, by this time she was committed.

Deena marched beside Walter toward the door and they exited to confront the amazed staff. Some of the new Fortuna loyalists were wired into the morning’s events. They expected Deena to be forced cowering out the door by Herring and a couple even had their cell phones out to record the action. Instead, they recorded him, visibly shaken and sweating and almost on tiptoe led by a seemingly unruffled and confident woman half his size. He stood aside meekly as she released her grip and walked proud and upright to her desk. She retrieved her purse and her gun, and dropped his gun into her desk drawer, locking it. She threw the key to Laura and called out a cheery Goodbye, nice knowing you all. as she walked out the door for the last time.

So, that’s what a bad day at the office looks like, she said to herself, as she got in her car to drive home.

2 - Deena

Her abrupt firing left Deena with the rest of the day to think about the events and people that led up to it. One person, especially, was on her mind. For the first time in a very long time, she was contemplating a long-term romantic relationship and she both savored and feared it. The fact that it was jumbled-up with her career only added to her uncertainty. Seeking to avoid that complexity for the moment, she instead focused her thoughts on the architect of her very recent loss of employment, Kevin Fortuna, Chief of Staff, and his connection to the Silver State Prosperity Alliance, or SSPA.

In spite of the fact that they were working to accomplish the same goal of getting White elected, Deena had only met him briefly at a social event during the campaign and hardly saw him afterward until his appointment as Chief of Staff. The Supreme Court decision that spawned the super PACs set out only two rules for them to be eligible to collect and spend infinite amounts of money on political issues and campaigns. The money couldn’t be contributed directly to the campaigns and the spending couldn’t be coordinated with the campaigns. The Federal Elections Commission responsible for enforcing that rule had been politically neutered and rendered powerless years ago, but Deena, as Finance Director for the campaign, was a stickler for the rules. She would never have stood for it if she knew about it.

The SSPA was funded almost exclusively by one closely held corporation, Kobel Excavating and Construction, one of the largest construction companies in the Western United States. The majority owner was a Nevada multi-billionaire businessman named Eric Kobel. Although the super PAC had supported right wing causes and Republican candidates in the past, this was the first time it moved decisively to influence an election.

White had succeeded a three-term Republican incumbent in the district. The incumbent did not expect a challenger in the primary. Then the SSPA came in just before the election and dropped over two million dollars for incessant television mudslinging. That advertising budget was more than the usual cost of an entire congressional election in Nevada, primary and general, for both parties combined. Slick advertisements used innuendo to suggest that the incumbent was guilty of everything from taking kickbacks from gold mine operators to lavish parties at a Pahrump brothel at taxpayer expense. Even his trademark cowboy hat was derided with the slogan All hat, no cattle (borrowed from Texas), combined with a litany of anecdotes and interviews suggesting neglect of veterans, seniors and every imaginable constituent group.

The sucker-punched opponent couldn’t even respond to the barrage until after the election was over and he lost decisively. He spent many sleepless nights wondering what the hell had happened to him. Meanwhile, White coasted to victory in the general election in a district that was two-thirds Republican.

Deena thought this smear campaign was repugnant, but since it came from the super PAC, there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing like it came from her campaign team.

THE OBJECT OF HER ROMANTIC reflection was Michal Chudak. It was an understatement to call him rich. While not a brilliant entrepreneur himself, he had an uncanny instinct for identifying those who would be. Starting from a modest inheritance from his deceased grandmother when he was still in engineering school, he had invested well on the ground floor of everything from software startups, to factory automation, to biomedical companies. Seldom placing a bad bet, he had, at the relatively young age of thirty-nine, joined the rarified ranks of the world’s billionaires. He called himself billionaire with a small b in recognition of how recently he crossed that threshold. He lived alone in a luxurious, newly-built third floor penthouse suite in Palo Alto, California. Much of his business was associated with Silicon Valley, and he was in good company with the ten or so other tech billionaires there.

He was a good looking man, in a rugged sort of way, but not movie star material. His strong, angular facial features were softened by gentle eyes and an endearingly crooked smile. Close-cropped hair and a clean-shaven face suited his distinguished gentleman style, which he typically set off by an open dress shirt and a suit or sport coat. Bucking the understated Silicon Valley tech circle fashion trends, his only clothing fetish was wide cowboy belts with flashy buckles, which he sported even in the most formal of settings.

Good-looking, fit, personable, and filthy rich, he had never had a problem attracting the ladies, and he never lacked for companionship when he wanted it. Except for one sad interlude, he found no one interesting enough to settle down with.

DEENA’S FIRST MEETING with Michal was the fateful meet and greet in Carson City. She had recognized him immediately from her briefing in the potential wealthy donor category. She remembered that his name was pronounced Mee-kal, so one faux pas was avoided as she walked up and introduced herself. They chatted for only a few minutes before she made a point to steer him toward the congressman for an introduction. To her surprise, the greeting was much less than cordial. After a forced handshake and plastic smiles, White turned to her abruptly and said Deena, I see Doctor Faheem near the door. Go get him and find us a corner to chat.

As she walked away, she saw very confrontational body language as they exchanged heated words and then separated. She wondered what it was all about and how she failed to hear about it in her briefing.  Some staffer would be in deep trouble over this. Later at the event, she decided to look for Michal. She wanted to find out where the bad blood came from, and to apologize for her boss’ rudeness.

Deena found him near the refreshments. Their small talk soon transitioned into an engaging and easy exchange. He was quite likable, making White’s treatment of him all the more unexplainable. She didn’t uncover any intel, but mutual chemistry and lively conversation led to them getting acquainted and she gave him her number.

She resolved to check with her congressman boss before another meeting. Even though she had witnessed White’s rudeness toward Michal, Deena was surprised at the sharpness of the congressman’s response.

I don’t care if you meet with that sonofabitch, but I don’t want him around here or me. And don’t be talking about stuff that goes on in this office, he said. It did not bode well for balancing her personal interest with her career.

Deena and Michal soon had had another meeting, where they talked mostly local politics, and that led to regular dating. The getting to know you phase went very well. Each of them liked to banter, so even serious conversations were mixed with playfulness. They certainly enjoyed each other’s company and there was genuine mutual attraction.

As time went on, though, they each recognized their conversation as a bit superficial. They could talk about friends and family and debate politics and current events, but danced around more serious topics. After many weeks of this, it became clear that they were both holding something back, and that the relationship would go nowhere until that laundry was aired.

One day, she invited him to a Reno gym, giving no reason other than an opportunity to understand her better. They traveled separately, and he made his way to the designated room in which there was an exercise about to begin.

In five minutes, his mental vision of the composed and carefully styled professional he thought he knew shattered under a flurry of well-placed punches. Until now, he had seen only the measured businesswoman persona adorned with tasteful, tailored blazers. Now, tight black workout pants with Krav Maga printed along one leg and an athletic tank top with the same logo painted a radically different picture. Fingerless leather fighting gloves protected her hands while her flowing black hair was tied in a tight ponytail. From his vantage, her fitness, hard body, and slim waist were the foremost impression. In a boxer’s stance and with clenched fists at her jawline, she looked ready to take on anything, and would soon have her chance.

She faced a big black man with a bald head and bulging muscles from years of bodybuilding. He held a tombstone-shaped pad to his chest with both hands. Dispersed around her were three others, two men and a woman. One of the men had a large rectangular kick bag, and the other two were empty-handed. Other students stood by to await their turn at the drill.

A very fit young man wearing a T-shirt lettered with ‘Krav Maga’ on the front and ‘Instructor’ on the back was in charge of the class. He wore no uniform or colored