Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [272]
“If not, then who did it?”
“My hitchhikers.”
“Without your consent?”
“Without my knowledge.”
“I’d hate to admit how much I want to believe you—but there’s no way for you to prove it now.”
“No? I’ll prove it to you within the next fifteen minutes.”
“How? The fact remains that you’ve profited the most from those directives.”
“That’s true. I’ve profited more than Mr. Mouch and his gang could ever imagine. After my years of work, they gave me just the chance I needed.”
“Are you boasting?”
“You bet I am!” Rearden saw incredulously that Francisco’s eyes had a hard, bright look, the look, not of a party hound, but of a man of action. “Mr. Rearden, do you know where most of those new aristocrats keep their hidden money? Do you know where most of the fair-share vultures have invested their profits from Rearden Metal?”
“No, but—”
“In d‘Anconia Copper stock. Safely out of the way and out of the country. D’.Anconia Copper—an old, invulnerable company, so rich that it would last for three more generations of looting. A company managed by a decadent playboy who doesn’t give a damn, who’ll let them use his property in any way they please and just continue to make money for them—automatically, as did his ancestors. Wasn’t that a perfect setup for the looters, Mr. Rearden? Only—what one single point did they miss?”
Rearden was staring at him. “What are you driving at?”
Francisco laughed suddenly. “It’s too bad about those profiteers on Rearden Metal. You wouldn’t want them to lose the money you made for them, would you, Mr. Rearden? But accidents do happen in the world—you know what they say, man is only a helpless plaything at the .mercy of nature’s disasters. For instance, there was a fire at the d‘An conia ore docks in Valparaiso tomorrow morning, a fire that razed them to the ground along with half of the port structures. What time is it, Mr. Rearden? Oh, did I mix my tenses? Tomorrow afternoon, there will be a rock slide in the d’.Anconia mines at Oráno—no lives lost, no casualties, except the mines themselves. It will be found that the mines are done for, because they had been worked in the wrong places for months—what can you expect from a playboy’s management? The great deposits of copper will be buried under tons of mountain where a Sebastián d‘Anconia would not be able to reclaim them in less than three years, and a People’s State will never reclaim them at all. When the stockholders begin to look into things, they will find that the mines at Campos, at San Félix, at Las Heras have been worked in exactly the same manner and have been running at a loss for over a year, only the playboy juggled the books and kept it out of the newspapers. Shall I tell you what they will discover about the management of the d’.Anconia foundries? Or of the d‘Anconia ore fleet? But all these discoveries won’t do the stockholders any good anyway, because the stock of d’.Anconia Copper will have crashed tomorrow morning, crashed like an electric bulb against concrete, crashed like an express elevator, spattering pieces of hitchhikers all over the gutters!”
The triumphant rise of Francisco’s voice merged with a matching sound: Rearden burst out laughing.
Rearden did not know how long that moment lasted or what he had felt, it had been like a blow hurling him into another kind of consciousness, then a second blow returning him to his own—all that was left, as at the awakening from a narcotic, was the feeling that he had known some immense kind of freedom, never to be matched in reality. This was like the Wyatt fire again, he thought, this was his secret danger.
He found himself backing away from Francisco d.‘Anconia. Francisco stood watching him intently, and looked as if he had been watching him all through that unknown length of time.
“There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Rearden,” Francisco said softly, “except one: the refusal to think.”
“No,” said Rearden; it was almost a whisper, he had to keep his voice down, he was afraid