Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [409]
Eddie gave her a warning by not answering at once, then said, his voice as even as hers, “Ryan’s gone, Dagny. He quit last week.”
They did not notice Taggart, as they did not notice the furniture around them. She had not granted him even the recognition of ordering him out of her office. Like a paralytic, uncertain of his muscles’ obedience, he gathered his strength and slipped out. But he was certain of the first thing he had to do: he hurried to his office to destroy his letter of resignation.
She did not notice his exit; she was looking at Eddie. “Is Knowland here?” she asked.
“No. He’s gone.”
“Andrews?”
“Gone.”
“McGuire?”
“Gone.”
He went on quietly to recite the list of those he knew she would ask for, those most needed in this hour, who had resigned and vanished within the past month. She listened without astonishment or emotion, as one listens to the casualty list of a battle where all are doomed and it makes no difference whose names fall first.
When he finished, she made no comment, but asked, “What has been done since this morning?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Dagny, any office boy could have issued orders here since this morning and everybody would have obeyed him. But even the office boys know that whoever makes the first move today will be held responsible for the future, the present and the past—when the buck-passing begins. He would not save the system, he would merely lose his job by the time he saved one division. Nothing has been done. It’s stopped still. Whatever is moving, is moving on anyone’s blind guess—out on the line where they don’t know whether they’re to move or to stop. Some trains are held at stations, others are going on, waiting to be stopped before they reach Colorado. It’s whatever the local dispatchers decide. The Terminal manager downstairs has cancelled all transcontinental traffic for today, including tonight’s Comet. I don’t know what the manager in San Francisco is doing. Only the wrecking crews are working. At the tunnel. They haven’t come anywhere near the wreck as yet. I don’t think they will.”
“Phone the Terminal manager downstairs and tell him to put all transcontinental trains back on the schedule at once, including tonight’s Comet. Then come back here.”
When he came back, she was bending over the maps she had spread on a table, and she spoke while he made rapid notes:
“Route all westbound trains south from Kirby, Nebraska, down the spur track to Hastings, down the track of the Kansas Western to Laurel, Kansas, then to the track of the Atlantic Southern at Jasper, Oklahoma. West on the Atlantic Southern to Flagstaff, Arizona, north on the track of the Flagstaff-Homedale to Elgin, Utah, north to Midland, northwest on the track of the Wasatch Railway to Salt Lake City. The Wasatch Railway is an abandoned narrow-gauge. Buy it. Have the gauge spread to standard. If the owners are afraid, since sales are illegal, pay them twice the money and proceed with the work. There is no rail between Laurel, Kansas, and Jasper, Oklahoma—three miles, no rail between Elgin and Midland, Utah—five and a half miles. Have the rail laid. Have construction crews start at once—recruit every local man available, pay twice the legal wages, three times, anything they ask—put three shifts on—and have the job done overnight. For rail, tear up the sidings at Winston, Colorado, at Silver Springs, Colorado, at Leeds, Utah, at Benson, Nevada. If any local stooges of the Unification Board come to stop the work—give authority to our local men, the ones you trust, to bribe them. Don’t put that through the Accounting Department, charge it to me, I’ll pay it. If they find some case where it doesn’t work, have them tell the stooge that Directive 10-289 does not provide for local injunctions, that an injunction has to be brought against our headquarters and that they have to sue me, if they wish to stop us.”
“Is that true?”
“How do I know? How can anybody know? But by the time they untangle it and decide whatever it is they please to decide—our track will be built.”
“I see.”
“I’ll go over