Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [407]
The screaming of the telephones went on through the silence. He knew that those pleas for help were not addressed to him, but to an entity whose shape he had stolen. It was this shape that the screams were now tearing away from him; he felt as if the ringing ceased to be sounds and became a succession of slashes hitting his skull. The object of the hatred began to take form, as if summoned by the bells. The solid ball exploded within him and flung him blindly into action.
Rushing out of the room, in defiance of all the faces around him, he went running down the halls to the Operating Department and into the anteroom of the Operating Vice-President’s office.
The door to the office was open: he saw the sky in the great windows beyond an empty desk. Then he saw the staff in the anteroom around him, and the blond head of Eddie Willers in the glass cubbyhole. He walked purposefully straight toward Eddie Willers, he flung the glass door open and, from the threshold, in the sight and hearing of the room, he screamed:
“Where is she?”
Eddie Willers rose slowly to his feet and stood looking at Taggart with an odd kind of dutiful curiosity, as if this were one more phenomenon to observe among all the unprecedented things he had observed. He did not answer.
“Where is she?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Listen, you stubborn little punk, this is no time for ceremony! If you’re trying to make me believe that you don’t know where she is, I don’t believe you! You know it and you’re going to tell me, or I’ll report you to the Unification Board! I’ll swear to them that you know it—then try and prove that you don.‘t!”
There was a faint tone of astonishment in Eddie’s voice as he answered, “I’ve never attempted to imply that I don’t know where she is, Jim. I know it. But I won’t tell you.”
Taggart’s scream rose to the shrill, impotent sound that confesses a miscalculation: “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“Will you repeat it”—he waved at the room—“for these witnesses?”
Eddie raised his voice a little, more in precision and clarity than in volume: “I know where she is. But I will not tell you.”
“You’re confessing that you’re an accomplice who’s aiding and abetting a deserter?”
“If that’s what you wish to call it.”
“But it’s a crime! It’s a crime against the nation. Don’t you know that?”
“No.”
“It’s against the law!”
“Yes.”
“This is a national emergency! You have no right to any private secrets! You’re withholding vital information! I’m the President of this railroad! I’m ordering you to tell me! You can’t refuse to obey an order! It’s a penitentiary offense! Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do you refuse?”
“I do.”
Years of training had made Taggart able to watch any audience around him, without appearing to do so. He saw the tight, closed faces of the staff, faces that were not his allies. All had a look of despair, except the face of Eddie Willers. The “feudal serf” of Taggart Transcontinental was the only one who seemed untouched by the disaster. He looked at Taggart with the lifelessly conscientious glance of a scholar confronted by a field of knowledge he had never wanted to study.
“Do you realize that you’re a traitor?” yelled Taggart.
Eddie asked quietly, “To whom?”
“To the people! It’s treason to shield a deserter! It’s economic treason! Your duty to feed the people comes first, above anything else whatever! Every public authority has said so! Don’t you know it? Don’t you know what they’ll do to you?”
“Don’t you see that I don’t give a damn about that?”
“Oh, you don’t? I’ll quote that to the Unification Board! I have all these witnesses to prove that you said—”
“Don’t bother about witnesses, Jim. Don’t put them on the spot. I’ll write down