After being seated at a table in a small private alcove off the main dining room by the maitre d', Pitt asked Loren, "Wine or champagne?"

"Why ask?" she said. "You know a good Cabernet puts me in a vulnerable mood."

Pitt ordered a bottle of Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon from the wine steward and settled comfortably into the leather chair. "While we're waiting to order, why don't you tell me what you've found on Destiny Enterprises?"

Loren smiled. "I should make you feed me first."

"Another politician on the take," he said satirically.

She leaned down, opened her briefcase and retrieved several file folders. She passed them discreetly under the table. "Destiny Enterprises is definitely not a corporation that delights in public relations, promotional programs, or advertising. They have never sold stock, and are wholly owned by the Wolf family, which consists of three generations. They do not produce, nor do they distribute, profit-and-loss statements or annual reports. Obviously, they could never operate with such secrecy in the U.S., Europe, or Asia, but they wield enormous clout with the Argentine government, beginning with the Perons soon after World War Two."

Pitt was reading the opening pages of the file when the wine arrived. After the wine steward poured a small amount in his glass, he studied the color, inhaled the scent, and then took a mouthful. He did not daintily sip the Cabernet but gently swirled it around in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. He looked up at the wine steward and smiled. "I'm always amazed at the finesse yet the solid soul of a Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon."

"A very excellent choice, sir," said the wine steward. "Not many of our patrons know it exists."

Pitt indulged in another taste of the wine before continuing his study of the file. "Destiny Enterprises seems to have materialized out of nowhere in 1947."

Loren stared into the deep, fluid red in her wineglass. "I hired a researcher to examine Buenos Aires newspapers of the time. There was no mention of Wolf in the business sections. The researcher could only pass on rumors that the corporation was made up of high Nazi officials who had escaped Germany before the surrender."

"Admiral Sandecker talked about the flow of the Nazis and their stolen wealth by U-boat to Argentina during the final months of the war. The operation was orchestrated by Martin Bormann."

"Wasn't he killed trying to escape during the battle of Berlin?" asked Loren.

"I don't believe it was ever proven the bones they found many years later were his."

"I read somewhere that the greatest unsolved mystery of the war was the total disappearance of the German treasury. Not one Deutschmark or scrap of gold was ever found. Could it be Bormann survived and smuggled the country's stolen wealth to South America?"

"He heads the list of suspects," answered Pitt. He began sifting through the papers in the files, but found little of interest. Most were merely newspaper articles reporting business dealings of Destiny Enterprises that were too large to keep confidential. The most detailed analysis came from a CIA report. It listed the various activities and projects the corporation was involved in, but few if any details of their operations.

"They seem quite diversified," said Pitt. "Vast mining operations for recovering gemstones, gold, platinum, and other rare minerals. Their computer software development and publishing division is the fourth largest in the world behind Microsoft. They're heavily into oil field development. They're also a world leader in nanotechnology."

"I'm not sure what that is," said Loren.

Before Pitt could answer, the waiter approached the table for their order. "What catches your fancy?" he asked her.

"I trust your taste," she said softly. "You order for me."

Pitt did not attempt to pronounce the menu courses in French. He held to straight English. "For the hors d'oeuvres, we'll have your house pate with truffles, followed by vichyssoise. For the main course, the lady will have the rabbit stewed in white wine sauce, while I'll try the sweetbreads in brown butter sauce."

"How can you eat sweetbreads?" Loren asked, with an expression of distaste.

"I've always had a craving for good sweetbreads," Pitt replied simply. "Where were we? Oh yes, nanotechnology. From what little I know on the subject, nanotechnology is a new science that attempts to control the arrangement of atoms, enabling the construction of virtually anything possible under natural law. Molecular repairs inside human bodies will be possible and manufacturing will be revolutionized. Nothing will be impossible to produce cheaply and with quality. Incredibly tiny machines that can reproduce themselves will be programmed to create new fuels, drugs, metals, and building products that would not be possible with normal techniques. I've heard that mainframe computers can be built with a volume as small as a cubic micron. Nanotechnology has to be the wave of the future."

"I can't begin to imagine how it works."

"It's my understanding the goal is to create what nanotechnology experts call an assembler, a submicroscopic robot with articulated arms that are operated by computers. Supposedly they could construct large, atomically precise objects by controlled chemical reactions, molecule by molecule. The assemblers can even be designed to replicate themselves. Theoretically, you could program your assemblers to build you a new custom set of golf clubs out of metals yet to be developed, a television set of a particular shape to fit a cabinet, even an automobile or an airplane, including special fuel to run them."

"Sounds fantastic."

"The advances over the next thirty years should prove mind boggling."

"That explains the file on Destiny's project in Antarctica," said Loren, pausing to sip her wine. "You'll find it in file 5-A."

"Yes, I see it," acknowledged Pitt. "An extensive facility for mining minerals from the sea. They have to be the first to have ever profitably exploited seawater for valuable minerals."

"It seems Destiny's engineers and scientists have developed a molecular device capable of separating minerals such as gold from seawater."

"I assume the program is successful?"

"Very," said Loren. "According to Swiss depository records obtained covertly by the CIA- I swore to them on a thousand Bibles that this information would remain strictly confidential- Destiny's deposits of gold into Swiss vaults come close to matching the hoard at Fort Knox."

"Their retrieval of gold would have to be held on a select level, or world gold prices would plummet."

"According to my sources, Destiny's management has yet to sell so much as an ounce."

"For what purpose would they squirrel such an enormous hoard away?"

Loren shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Maybe they've slowly and discreetly sold to keep market prices up. If they suddenly flooded the market with tons of gold, their profits would go down the toilet."

The waiter arrived with their pate with truffles. Loren took a dainty forkful into her mouth and made a gratified expression. "This is wonderful."

"Yes, it is good," Pitt agreed.

They relished the pate in silence, finishing the last morsel before Loren resumed the conversation. "Although the CIA has accumulated a mass of data on a neo-Nazi movement after the war, they did not find evidence of an underground conspiracy involving Destiny Enterprises or the Wolf family."