Текст книги "Atlantis Found"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

27

After the meeting, Pitt returned to his office and was greeted by his longtime secretary, Zerri Pochinsky. A lovely lady with a dazzling smile, she was blessed with a body that would make a Las Vegas showgirl envious. Fawn-colored hair fell to her shoulders, and she peered at the world through captivating hazel eyes. She lived alone, with a cat named Murgatroyd, and seldom dated. Pitt was more than fond of Zerri, but exercised iron discipline in not coming on to her. As much as he often imagined her in his arms, he had a strict rule about socializing with any members of the opposite sex employed with NUMA. He had seen too many office affairs inevitably lead to disaster.

"FBI Special Agent Ken Helm called and would like you to return his call," she announced, handing him a pink slip of paper with the number of Helm's private line. "Are you in trouble with your government again?"

He grinned at her and leaned over Zerri's desk until their noses were less than an inch apart. "I'm always in trouble with my government."

Her eyes flashed mischievously. "I'm still waiting for you to sweep me off my feet and fly me to a beach in Tahiti."

He pulled back a safe distance, because the scent of her Chanel was beginning to stir unnatural feelings within him. "Why can't you find some nice, stable, home-loving male to marry, so you can stop harassing an old, unanchored, derelict beach bum?"

"Because stable home-lovers aren't any fun."

"Whoever said women are nest-oriented?" He sighed.

Pitt pulled away and stepped into his office, which looked like a trailer park after a tornado. Books, papers, nautical charts, and photographs littered every square inch of space, including the carpet. He had decorated his workplace in antiques he'd bought at auction from the American President Lines elegant passenger ship President Cleveland. He settled behind his desk, picked up the receiver, and dialed Helm's number.

A voice answered with a terse "Yes?"

"Mr. Helm, Dirk Pitt returning your call."

"Mr. Pitt, thank you. I just thought you'd like to know that the Bureau has identified the body you shipped from the Antarctic and also the woman you apprehended last night."

"That was fast work."

"Thanks to our new computerized photo ID department," explained Helm. "They've scanned every newspaper, magazine, TV broadcast, state motor vehicle driver's license record, company security face shot, passport photo, and police record to build the world's largest photo identification network. It consists of hundreds of millions of enhanced facial close-ups. Combined with our fingerprint and DNA files, we can now cover a vast spectrum for identifying bodies and fugitives. We had a make on both women within twenty minutes."

"What did you discover?"

"The name of the deceased from the submarine was Heidi Wolf. The woman you apprehended last night is Elsie Wolf."

"Then they are twin sisters."

"No, actually, they're cousins. And what is really off the wall is that they both come from a very wealthy family and are high-level executives of the same vast business conglomerate."

Pitt stared in contemplation out the window of his office, without seeing the Potomac River outside and the Capitol in the background. "Would they happen to be related to Karl Wolf, the CEO of Destiny Enterprises out of Argentina?"

Helm paused, then said, "It seems you're two steps ahead of me, Mr. Pitt."

"Dirk."

"All right, Dirk, you're on the mark. Heidi was Karl's sister. Elsie is his cousin. And, yes, Destiny Enterprises is a privately owned business empire based in Buenos Aires. Forbes has estimated the combined family resources at two hundred and ten billion dollars."

"Not exactly living on the streets, are they?"

"And I had to marry a girl whose father was a bricklayer."

Pitt said, "I don't understand why a woman of such affluence would stoop to committing petty burglary."

"When you get the answers, I hope you'll pass them on to me."

"Where is Elsie now?" asked Pitt.

"Under guard at a private clinic run by the Bureau on W Street, across from Mount Vernon College."

"Can I talk to her?"

"I see no problem from the Bureau's end, but you'll have to go through the doctor in charge of her case. His name is Aaron Bell. I'll call and clear your visit."

"Is she lucid?"

"She's conscious. You gave her a pretty hard rap on the head. Her concussion was just short of a skull fracture."

"I didn't hit her. It was her motorcycle."

"Whatever," said Helm, the humor obvious in his tone. "You won't get much out of her. One of our best interrogators tried. She's one tough lady. She makes a clam look talkative."

"Does she know her cousin is dead?"

"She knows. She also knows that Heidi's remains are lying in the clinic's morgue."

"That should prove interesting," Pitt said slowly.

"What will prove interesting?" Helm inquired.

"The look on Elsie's face when I tell her I'm the one who recovered Heidi's body from Antarctic waters and air-shipped it to Washington."

Almost immediately after hanging up the phone, Pitt left the NUMA building and drove over to the unmarked clinic used exclusively by the FBI and other national security agencies. He parked the '36 Ford cabriolet in an empty stall next to the building and walked through the main entrance. He was asked for his identification, and phone calls were made before he was allowed admittance. An administrator directed him to the office of Dr. Bell.

Pitt had actually met the doctor several times, not for care or treatment but during social functions to raise money for a cancer foundation that his father, Senator George Pitt, and Bell served on as directors. Aaron Bell was in his middle sixties, a hyper character, red-faced, badly overweight, and working under a blanket of stress. He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and drank twenty cups of coffee. His outlook on life, as he often expressed it, was "Go like hell and go to the grave satisfied."

He emerged from behind his desk like a bear walking on its hind legs. "Dirk!" he boomed. "Good to see you. How's the senator?"

"Planning on running for another term."

"He'll never quit, and neither will I. Sit down. You're here about the woman who was brought in last night."

"Ken Helm called?"

"You wouldn't have crossed the threshold if he hadn't."

"The clinic doesn't look highly guarded."

"Stare cross-eyed at a surveillance camera and see what happens."

"Did she suffer any permanent brain damage?"

Bell shook his head vigorously. "One hundred percent after a few weeks. Incredible constitution. She's not built like most women who come through these doors."

"She it very attractive," said Pitt.

"No, no, I'm not talking about looks. This woman is a remarkable physical specimen, as is, or should I say was, the body of her cousin you shipped from the Antarctic."

"According to the FBI, they're cousins."

"Nonetheless, a perfect genetic match," said Bell seriously. "Too perfect."

"How so?"

"I attended the postmortem examination, then took the findings and compared the physical characteristics with the lady lying in a bed down the hall. There's more going on here than mere family similarities."

"Helm told me Heidi's body is here at the clinic."

"Yes, on a table in the basement morgue."

"Can't family members with the same genes, especially cousins, have a mirror image?" asked Pitt.

"Not impossible, but extremely rare," replied Bell.

"It's said that we all have an identical look-alike wandering somewhere in the world."

Bell smiled. "God help the guy who looks like me."

Pitt asked, "So where is this leading?"

"I can't prove it without months of examination and tests, and I'm going out on a limb with an opinion, but I'm willing to stake my reputation on the possibility that those two young ladies, one living, one dead, were developed and manufactured."

Pitt looked at him. "You can't be suggesting androids."

"No, no." Bell waved his hands. "Nothing so ridiculous."

"Cloning?"

"Not at all."

"Then what?"

"I believe they were genetically engineered."

"Is that possible?" asked Pitt, unbelieving. "Does the science and technology exist for such an achievement?"

"There are labs full of scientists working on perfecting the human body through genetics, but to my knowledge they're still in the mice-testing stage. All I can tell you is that if Elsie doesn't die in the same manner as Heidi, or fall under a truck, or get murdered by a jealous lover, she'll probably live to celebrate her hundred and twentieth birthday."

"I'm not at all sure I'd want to live that long," said Pitt thoughtfully. "Nor I," said Bell, laughing. "Certainly not in this old bod."

"May I see Elsie now?"

Bell rose from his desk chair and motioned for Pitt to follow him out of the office and down the hall. Since entering the clinic, the only two people Pitt had seen were the administrator in the lobby and Dr. Bell. The clinic seemed incredibly clean and sterile and devoid of life.

Bell came to a door with no guard outside, inserted a card into an electronic slot, and pushed it open. A woman was sitting up in a standard hospital bed, staring through a window whose view was interrupted by a heavy screen and a series of bars. This was the first time Pitt had seen Elsie in daylight, and he was awed by the incredible resemblance to her dead cousin. The same mane of blond hair, the same blue-gray eyes. He found it hard to believe they were merely cousins.

"Ms. Wolf," said Bell, in a cheery voice, "I've brought you a visitor." He looked at Pitt and nodded. "I'll leave you two alone. Try not to take too long."

There was no warning to Pitt about communicating with the doctor in case of a problem, and though he didn't see any TV cameras, Pitt knew without a doubt that their every movement and word was being monitored and recorded.

He pulled up a chair beside her bed and sat down, saying nothing for nearly a minute, staring into the eyes that seemed to peer through his head at a lithograph of the Grand Canyon hanging on the wall beyond. At last, he said, "My name is Dirk Pitt. I don't know if the name means anything to you, but it seemed to register with the commander of the U-2015 when we communicated with each other on an ice floe."

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but she remained silent. "I dove on the wreckage," Pitt continued, "and retrieved the body of your cousin, Heidi. Would you like me to arrange for her to be transported to Karl in Buenos Aires for proper burial in the Wolf private cemetery?"

Pitt was treading a narrow path, but he assumed that the Wolfs had a private cemetery.

This time he scored points. Her eyes went reflective as she tried to cut through his words. Finally, her lips pressed together with obvious anger, she began to tremble and move. "You!" she spat. "You are the one responsible for the deaths of our people in Colorado."

"Dr. Bell was wrong. You do have a tongue."

"You were also there when our submarine was sunk?" she asked, as if confused.

"I plead self-defense for my action in Colorado. And yes, I was on the Polar Storm when your sub went down, but I was not responsible for the incident. Blame the US. Navy if you must. If not for their timely intervention, your cousin and her bloody band of pirates would have sunk a harmless ocean research ship and killed more than a hundred innocent crewmen and scientists. Don't ask me to shed tears for Heidi. As far as I'm concerned, she and her crew got what they deserved."

"What have you done with her body?" she demanded.

"It's here in the clinic's morgue," he answered. "I'm told the two of you could have grown from the same pod."

"We are genetically unblemished," Elsie said arrogantly. "Unlike the rest of the human race."

"How did that come about?"

"It took three generations of selection and experimentation. My generation has physically perfect bodies and the mental capacity of geniuses. We are also exceedingly creative in the arts."

"Really?" Pitt said sarcastically. `And all this time I thought inbreeding generated imbeciles."

Elsie stared at Pitt for a long moment, then smiled coldly. "Your insults are meaningless. In a short time, you and all the other flawed individuals who walk the earth will be dead."

Pitt studied her eyes for a reaction. When he replied, it was with detached indifference. "Ah yes, the twin of the comet that destroyed the Amenes nine thousand years ago returns, strikes the earth, and decimates the human race. I already know all about that."

He almost missed it, but it was there. A brief glint in the eyes of elation mixed with rapture. The pure sense of evil about her seemed so concentrated he could reach out and touch it. It disturbed him. He felt as though she was keeping a secret far more menacing than any he could remotely conceive.

"How long did it take your experts to decipher the inscriptions?" she asked casually.

"Five or six days."

Her face grew smug. "Our people did it in three."

He was certain she was lying, so he continued to fence with her. "Is the Wolf family planning any festivities to celebrate the coming of doomsday?"

Elsie shook her head slowly. "We have no time for foolish revelry. Our labors have been spent in survival."

"Do you really think a comet will strike in the next few weeks?"

"The Amenes were very precise in their astronomical and celestial charts." There was a flick of the eyes from his face to the floor and a lack of conviction in her voice that made Pitt doubt her.

"So I've been told."

"We have… connections with some of the finest astronomers in Europe and the United States, who verified the Amenes' projections. All agreed that the comet's return was plotted and timed with amazing accuracy."

"So your family of uncharitable clones kept the news to themselves rather than warn the world," Pitt said nastily. "And your connections kept the astronomers from talking. Benevolence must not be in the Wolf dictionary."

"Why cause a worldwide panic?" she said carelessly. "What good would it do in the end? Better to let the people die unknowing and without mental anguish."

"You're all heart."

"Life is for those who are the fittest, and those who plan."

"And the magnificent Wolfs? What's to keep you from being killed along with the rest of the foul-smelling rabble?"

"We have been planning our survival for over fifty years," she said decisively. "My family will not be swept away by floods or burned by raging fires. We are prepared to weather the catastrophe and endure the aftermath."

"Fifty years," Pitt repeated. "Is that when you found a chamber with the Amenes inscriptions telling of their near extinction after the comet's impact?"

"Yes," she answered simply.

"How many chambers are there in total?"

"The Amenes told of six."

"How many did your family find?"

"One."

"And we found two. That leaves three that remain undiscovered."

"One was lost in Hawaii after a volcano spewed tons of lava into it, effectively destroying it. Another disappeared forever during a great earthquake in Tibet during A.D. 800. Only one remains unfound. It's supposed to lie somewhere on the slopes of Mount Lascar in Chile."

"If it remains unfound," said Pitt carefully, "why did you murder a group of college students who were exploring a cave on the mountain?"

She glared at him, but refused to answer.

"Okay, let me ask you the location of the Amenes chamber your family discovered?" he pressed her.

She gazed at him almost as if he were a lost soul. "The earliest inscriptions we found of the Amenes are inside a temple that stands amid the ruins of what once was one of their port cities. You need not ask more, Mr. Pitt. I have said all I'm going to say, except that I suggest you bid farewell to your friends and loved ones. Because very soon now, what is left of your torn and shattered bodies will be floating in a sea that never existed before."

That said, Elsie Wolf closed her eyes and shut herself off from Pitt and the world around her as effectively as if she had entered a deep freeze.

28

By the time Pitt left the clinic it was late in the afternoon, and he decided to head for his hangar rather than return to the NUMA building. He was moving slowly through the rush-hour traffic that crawled over the Rocheambeau Bridge before finally exiting onto the Washington Memorial Parkway. He was just approaching the gate at the airport maintenance road leading to his hangar when the Globalstar phone signaled an incoming call.

"Hello."

"Hi, lover," came the sultry voice of Congresswoman Loren Smith.

"I'm always happy to hear from my favorite government representative."

"What are you doing tonight?"

"I thought I'd whip up a smoked salmon omelet, take a shower, and watch TV," Pitt answered, as the guard waved him through, staring at the '36 Ford with envy in his eyes.

"Bachelors lead dull lives," she said teasingly.

"I gave up barhopping when I turned twenty-one."

"Sure you did." She paused to answer a question from one of her aides. "Sorry about that. A constituent called to complain about potholes in the road in front of his house."

"Congresswomen lead dull lives," he retorted.

"Just for being testy, you're taking me to dinner at St. Cyr's."

"You have good taste," said Pitt. "That will set me back a month's wages. What's the occasion?"

"I have a rather thick report on Destiny Enterprises sitting on my desk and it's going to cost you big-time."

"Did anybody ever tell you, you're in the wrong business?"

"I've sold my soul to pass legislation more times than any hooker has sold her body to clients."

Pitt pulled to a stop at a large hangar entry door and pressed a code into a remote transmitter. "I hope you have reservations. St. Cyr's isn't known for taking commoners off the street."

"I did a favor for the chef once. Trust me, we'll have the best table in the house. Pick me up in front of my place at seven-thirty."

"Can you get me a discount on the wine?"

"You're cute," said Loren softly. "Goodbye."

Pitt wasn't in the mood to wear a tie to a fancy restaurant. As he pulled the Ford up in front of Loren's town house in Alexandria, he was wearing gray slacks, a dark blue sport coat, and a saffron-colored turtleneck sweater. Loren spotted him and the car from her fourth-story balcony, waved, and came down. Chic and glamorous, she wore a charcoal lace-and-beadwork cardigan with palazzo pants pleated in the front under a black, knee-length imitation fur coat. She carried a briefcase whose charcoal leather matched her outfit. She'd seen from the balcony that Pitt had put the top up on the Ford, and so, since she did not have to worry about windblown hair, she didn't bother to wear a hat.

Pitt stood on the sidewalk and opened the door for her. "Nice to see there are still a few gentlemen left," she said, with a flirty smile.

He leaned down and kissed her cheek. "I come from the old school."

The restaurant was only two miles away, just across the Capitol Beltway into Fairfax County, Virginia. The valet parking attendant's face lit up like a candle inside a Halloween pumpkin when he spotted the hotrod roll up in front of the elegant restaurant. The mellow tone from the exhaust pipes sent quivers up his spine.

He handed Pitt a claim check, but before he drove away, Pitt leaned in and scanned the odometer. "Something wrong, sir?" asked the parking attendant.

"Just reading the mileage," replied Pitt, giving the young man a knowing look.

His dream of taking the hot rod out for a spin while its owner was inside having dinner now suddenly dashed, the attendant drove the car slowly into the lot and parked it next to a Bentley.

St. Cyr's was an intimate dining experience. Established in an eighteenth-century colonial brick house, the owner-chef had come to Washington by way of Cannes and Paris after having been discovered by a pair of wealthy Washington developers with palates for fine food and wine. They'd bankrolled the restaurant, giving the chef a half interest. The dining room was decorated in deep blues and golds, with Moroccan-style decor and furniture. There were no more than twelve tables served by six waiters and four busboys. What Pitt especially enjoyed about St. Cyr's was the acoustics. With heavy curtains and miles of fabric on the walls, all sounds of conversation were cut to a bare minimum, unlike most restaurants, in which you couldn't hear what the person across the table was saying and the din literally ruined any enjoyment of a gourmet meal.

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."

"Yet according to this," said Pitt, holding up a stapled file of papers, "it was no secret that the loot stolen by the Nazis from the treasures of Austria, Belgium, Norway, France, and the Netherlands, plus much of the gold and financial assets of the Jews, were slipped into Argentina by U-boats after the war."

Loren nodded. "Most of the gold and other hard assets were converted to currency and then diverted through central banks."

"And the holder of the funds?"

"Who else? Destiny Enterprises, soon after it was organized in 1947. What's strange is that there is no record of a Wolf on their board of directors in the early years."

"They must have taken control later," said Pitt. "I wonder how the family shoved aside the old Nazi who fled Germany in 1945?"

"Good question," Loren agreed. "Over the past fifty-four years, the Destiny empire has grown to where their power influences world banks and governments to an unimaginable degree. They literally own Argentina. One of my aides has an informant who claims a significant amount of money goes into campaign funds for members of our own Congress. That's probably the reason why no government investigation of Destiny Enterprises ever got off the ground."

"Their tentacles also reach into the pockets of our honored senators and House representatives, and many of the people who have served in the White House."

Loren held up both hands. "Don't look at me. I never knowingly got a dime under the table from Destiny for my campaign funds."

Pitt threw her a foxlike look. "Really?"

She kicked him under the table. "Stop that. You know perfectly well I've never been on the take. I happen to be one of the most respected members of Congress."

"Maybe the prettiest, but your esteemed colleagues don't know you like I do."

"You're not funny."

The bowls of vichyssoise were set before them and they savored the taste, enhanced by an occasional sip of the Martin Ray Cabernet. The wine didn't take long to course through their veins and mellow their minds, and the attentive waiter was always nearby to refill their glasses.

"It's beginning to look like what the Nazis couldn't achieve by mass slaughter, destruction, and warfare, they're accomplishing through economic power," said Loren.

"World domination is passé," Pitt disagreed. "The Chinese leaders might have it in the back of their heads, but as their economy builds the country into a superpower, they'll come to realize that a war will only bring it crashing down. Since Communist Russia fell, the major wars of the future will be economic. The Wolfs understand that economic power ultimately leads to political power. They have the resources to buy whatever and whoever they want. The only question is what direction are they headed in."