Big Miracle (38 page)

Chastened by their weeklong wait for others, the rescue command went one step further, and began planning beyond the explosives. Assuming that they could never be used, Morris asked Cindy and others for other ideas on getting the whales past the forty-foot wall of ice.

“What about flying them over the ridge in nets?” she asked. Killer whales, though smaller than the grays, had been moved this way before, but the procedure was dangerous. Luring a gray whale safely into a net under thick ice was one thing, lifting it safely out was quite another. Even the Skycrane, the world's most powerful transport helicopter, might not have the power to pull the 50,000-pound whales out of the water and fly them the mile or so to open water. The whales would have to be tranquilized. Since a dose small enough for a man could kill a whale, administering drugs would prove tricky. Then there was the unknown effect of gravity. Would it split their huge girths wide open, splattering their entrails onto the ice below? That would surely make for morbidly fascinating video.

Dr. Tom Albert from the North Slope Borough contacted a friend in Norway who was an expert in drugging whales. He began preparing the serum. Sea World in San Diego, which had successfully airlifted killer whales, began knitting a huge mesh net big enough for the much larger grays. It was an audacious scheme with little chance of success. But if all else failed, they would be ready to try. With great efficiency, Operation Breakout took on a mission all its own. While the upper echelons plotted to assault the pressure ridge, the Eskimos continued with their meticulous ice cutting. Arnold Brower and his crews had opened fifty-five new holes since they started cutting them earlier in the week.

As soon as the deicers arrived two nights earlier, the three whales started using the new holes. But then, they stopped. Geoff, Craig and the National Marine Mammal Laboratory biologists couldn't figure out why. Maybe they were resting. After two grueling weeks, the whales were finally breathing normally again. They actually seemed to enjoy their bubbly new surroundings. That same Friday morning, Craig George suddenly changed his mind. Standing quietly with Cindy, he noticed Bone, the baby whale, still lagged behind Poutu and Siku, the larger, more robust whales.

“Damn it,” Craig blurted out in sudden realization. “They aren't moving because of the baby.”

Only when they were absolutely threatened by Wednesday night's freezing holes did the whales move. When they reached the relative security of the new holes, they stopped. It had to be for Bone. Craig's logic held up to Geoff's preliminary analysis. In a remarkable display of bonding, neither of the two adolescent whales would abandon their helpless dependent. The only thing that could compel them to take such a radical step was a clear and present danger to their own well-being. The deicers eliminated that threat.

By noon, the ice surrounding the whales had resumed an eerie silence. As rumors of the Soviet icebreakers spread, most reporters fled back to town to tap their sources on the Outside. They finally had some legitimate reporting to do: real leads to follow, real people to talk to, real news. Best of all, they didn't have to stand outside in the minus-thirty-degree temperatures to do it. Cindy wanted to make her own phone calls. When she last heard from Campbell Plowden, a Soviet decision, contingent upon U.S. approval, seemed imminent. The hundred-man round-the-clock rescue operation never really required Cindy's constant presence on the ice. Still, she felt the whales were her domain. She had to be with them. But like everyone else, she was hungry, cold, and wanted to go back to town.

Cindy ran to the SAR helicopter, gave Randy Crosby a warm pat on the helmet, and climbed aboard. As Crosby gently lifted his aircraft and its human cargo off the surface of the ice, the chain of holes faded from view. The loud hum of the helicopter proved a welcome relief for Cindy. But the peace of the buzzing engines was short-lived. A second string of reporters waited for Cindy and Ron to confirm the reports now being widely reported in the Lower 48: the Soviets had offered an icebreaker and a support ship to help free the whales. The Russians were on the way. Not knowing what to say, Cindy elbowed nervously past the crowd to get to the nearest phone. She professed her ignorance several times before the reporters began to believe her. Later, when Cindy tried to tell the truth, she and Greenpeace would both appear a bit foolish.

When she walked into the lobby of the Top of the World, the press assumed a very different role. It was as though the lobby were a sanctuary where all who entered were “off the record.” Once she went inside, the reporters no longer asked her any questions or stuck any microphones or cameras in her face. It was then Cindy realized that reporters not only expected their subjects to act for them, they were actors themselves.

20

The Russians Are Coming

Campbell Plowden, Cindy Lowry's comrade in Washington, plodded nervously ahead. While waiting to hear from the State Department, he followed up on his two whale crises unfolding 15,000 miles apart. Even for a man whose job description included organizing boycotts and managing chaos, these were hectic times.

Lunch was long past when he received a call from Tucker Scully, Assistant Secretary John Negroponte's top deputy at the State Department. Plowden had waited for Scully's call all morning; his frenzied pace had prevented him from taking even three minutes to wolf down the avocado-and-sprout sandwich he had made for himself that morning. Scully told Plowden that before the State could officially authorize the Soviet vessels to enter U.S. waters, he would need answers to several technical questions. Scully wanted more information about the Soviet ships, such as their specifications and capabilities. He told Plowden it was standard State Department liability procedure. If the ships ran aground or a Soviet crewman was injured in U.S. waters, the Americans didn't want to be responsible. Scully didn't know how long it would take for him to get back to Plowden. Counseling patience, he promised to call back as soon as he could, but advised Plowden not to get his hopes up.

Until then, he told Plowden, “Keep a lid on it. We don't want word of this leaking out before its time,” he said. When the time was right, the State Department wanted to break the story themselves. Plowden wondered why people at State spent more time worrying about protocol than about policy. Why were they so insistent about “handling” the announcement? It could only make Plowden wonder. Did they want to steal all the credit? Or did they want to create the proper conditions to spurn the Russians' help?

“How can you possibly read something sinister into this?” Plowden asked the bewildered foreign service officer. “The whole world wants action and all you can do is stall!” Plowden had exhausted his patience. “What is it with you people?” he asked, not expecting an answer. During those fateful October days, Plowden was hardly alone in his demand for immediate action. After almost a week of gripping but frustrating drama, the world's passion for the whales' safety was reaching a climax. Everyone longed for a resolution, and Soviet participation seemed certain to lead to one. The sooner their ships were permitted to enter U.S. waters, the sooner the world would know whether the whales could be saved. Unless the icebreakers could crush the pressure ridge, hope was lost.

Plowden called Cindy. Stymied by the State Department's terminal caution, he had nothing new to report. Instead he listened to his near-exhausted colleague. For the past week Cindy had slept only a few hours a day. Between boisterous reporters making noise at all hours and neverending calls from quote-hungry journalists on the Outside, it was all she could manage. All the private-room lines were jammed, so she took Plowden's call on the phone in the lobby. A long line proceeded to form behind her. Cindy was lucky to find the phone free; most reporters had to wait over an hour that confusing Friday for a chance to be filled in on the story's rapidly unfolding developments taking place a world away.

“Is there anyone there who can help us?” Plowden pleaded. “What about the guy the president called, the colonel? Maybe he has some connections.”

Cindy didn't know how to react to her desperate coworker. For reasons she was never able to acknowledge, she didn't want to ask Colonel Carroll. She had only met him a few times, and was in no position to complain about his treatment of her. Every time they spoke, he was perfectly pleasant. She just didn't like the idea of getting him involved. Plowden instantly detected her reluctance, but he insisted she approach the colonel anyway.

“You're the one who claims we don't have any time,” he reminded her. “Just ask him to help us.”

Plowden, Cindy Lowry, and everyone else for that matter, knew that Tom Carroll must have impressive connections. After all, the president had called him, not Ron Morris. For the first time, Cindy let her preconceptions interfere with the rescue. Her reluctance was overcome by her concern for the whales. Besides, she had worked with Bill Allen, Ben Odom, and the other oil people, and the National Guard never drilled oil wells or polluted the oceans. Dismissing her wayward thoughts, she raced to locate the colonel. She found him reviewing flight logs in the Search and Rescue hangar, impervious to the pandemonium all around him. She was taken aback by the warmth of his greeting. Subconsciously she hoped he would show some visible sign of resentment to justify her negative feelings. Without knowing it, the amiable colonel stirred her guilt.

“If there is a way I can help, I'd be delighted,” he told her with what sounded like genuine concern.

“In fact, there is,” Cindy answered. “We are trying to expedite the State Department clearance of the Soviet icebreakers and we were wondering if you could help us out.”

Carroll froze. His eyes darted about the room, looking as if someone just shot him in the larynx. “The Soviets?” he asked, not knowing whether he actually restated the two words. The question took him by surprise. He was stunned and flustered, and could not hide it. Since no one from headquarters in Anchorage mentioned anything about the Russians, he never believed it. He thought it was just another rumor. He wondered what was true and what was not. If Cindy realized the question had shocked him, she might tell the media that he opposed the idea. They would really let him have it.

His mind raced, but it only turned him in circles. He glanced frantically around the room looking for something, anything, to distract him long enough to regain his equilibrium. For once, everyone in the room was occupied and no one was calling his name. He was alone. How could he possibly be expected to help clear the Soviets to sail in American waters? He was a colonel in the National Guard, not a diplomat or a freelance peacenik. Operation Breakout notwithstanding, Tom Carroll's duty was to the Guard, to his country.

“The Soviets,” he began. “Well, you see it's just not that…” His confidence soon wavered, however, as he stammered on. “I'm just not sure exactly how to … there are things you probably don't, I mean you can't … The Soviets, huh?” The composure that brought Tom Carroll this far was gone. Vanished in the Arctic chill.

His reaction to the word “Soviet” was as instinctively visceral as Cindy's reaction to the word “military.” The only difference was that Carroll's animus was justified while Cindy's was not. “Soviet” was one of the most abhorrent words in an American soldier's vocabulary and with good reason. Gorbachev or not, the Russians still had more than one thousand intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) aimed at American cities, and three million troops poised to pierce the heart of Europe with garrisons in hostile nations around the world.

Carroll's head throbbed. He had no orders or indications from his superiors on how to handle this one. God forbid he appear to aid and abet America's strategic opponent. He tried to convince himself that he was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. He was getting only an hour of sleep each night, and the coffee he was forced to drink amounted to little more than muddy water. Still, he had his career and the integrity of his superiors to consider.

It was time for a decision. Cindy had pushed his button.

“NO, NO, NO!!” he snapped. “Why on earth would you want the Soviets? There is nothing they can do that we can't. Besides,” he insisted, now the center of attention in the stunned silence of the SAR operations room, “the ice is too thick and the water is too shallow.”

Cindy's hunch proved right. The colonel's aversion to all things Soviet might have jeopardized the whales had it gone undetected. But now it had been brought to light for all to see. The colonel had been neutralized. His opposition was effectively removed from the icebreaker's path. She showed up the colonel and that was all that mattered—even if his comeuppance came at the price of elevating the Soviet Union. Still, Cindy was too stunned to gloat.

Her restraint further highlighted the colonel's anguish. He showed desperation; she, composure. He wanted to keep the Russians out, yet his irrational reaction only eased their way. Cindy politely asked Randy Crosby if she could borrow his phone to call Plowden in Washington. Out of deference to his new friend, Crosby silently nodded his assent. It was a painful moment for the colonel and he didn't want to make it any worse. She entered Crosby's office, leaving the door open. She didn't want the colonel to think that she would further humiliate him behind closed doors. Her refusal to engage in vengeful behavior only aggravated his defeat.

Surprisingly, she had no trouble getting through to her Washington office. Plowden was awaiting her call. “Tell your people at the State Department that we all want the Soviets to come. We need them here.”

Colonel Carroll draped his fatigued frame over a metal folding chair. A pane of glass separated him from Cindy as he lowered his head resignedly into his hands. He would have to cooperate. He would try one contact: Bonnie Mersinger in the White House. Plowden got the details on the two Russian vessels from the Soviet Consulate's merchant marine office in New York and passed them on to Tucker Scully at the State Department. The news was everywhere. Plowden could not possibly contain it. His contacts at the National Marine Fisheries Service appealed to their superiors to expedite State Department authorization. The wheels were well in motion. The stage was set for an official announcement later that afternoon.