The scene, 25 years ago this month, could have been lifted from a mob movie:

Ten top power-brokers in Orange County government headed to an exclusive Italian restaurant for a secret Saturday dinner. Strung out from a string of all-nighters — they’d been working to keep the county’s $20 billion investment pool from imploding — the meal was to be a pressure-reliever, a breather, a reward.

Despite the headlines just two days earlier — “O.C. fund down $1.5 billion” —  it seemed, on Dec. 3, 1994, that things might work out. During marathon calls with Wall Street brokers and local city bureaucrats they’d delivered a smooth new mantra — “It’s just a paper loss. Everything’s under control… Don’t panic!”