by Tom Rose
“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.
Cindy told Randy she wanted to go back to the ice. She wanted to be with the whales. She would leave politics and international negotiations to others. But just in case, she phoned Ron Morris who was making calls from his room at the Airport Inn. His wife had just arrived from Anchorage and not a moment too soon. Her presence had an almost immediate calming effect on the high-strung coordinator. Cindy asked Ron if he knew anything about the pending announcement, and he told her he did not. He promised to tell her when and if he did, a promise he couldn’t keep.
Cindy flew out to the whale site on the first press pool flight. At Colonel Carroll’s direction, Crosby and SAR were to fly a single crew from each medium: print, radio, and television. There was one flight in the morning and one in the afternoon. Whatever the pools gathered would be made available to everyone so much of the coverage consisted mainly of this footage. Crews wanting their own material—perhaps to supplement a scoop or some kind of exclusive—had to find their own way out to the ice.
Unsure of when she would have another chance to eat anything other than raw fish dipped in seal oil, on the twelve-minute flight out Cindy consumed a cold Pepe’s grease burger, which she had saved from the night before. From the protective cocoon of the cabin, she looked out at an austere yet magnificent sight. The cloudless skies glowed burnt orange over the timeless Arctic landscape.
While Cindy spent the late afternoon on the ice, Ron Morris received an urgent call from the office of William Evans, the undersecretary of the Department of Commerce in Washington. The faceless State Department pinstripes had finally decided to permit the Soviets to enter U.S. waters. Their analysis determined that the cost of rejecting the Soviet offer would be greater than accepting it. The Russians were coming. But like most other facets of international diplomacy, the mechanics of making the announcement were far more complicated than the announcement itself.
The State Department called the shots. To deemphasize its importance, the State Department wanted the lowest-ranking person they could find to make the announcement. They wanted to build as large a buffer between the upper echelons of American government and the whale rescue as they could. State wanted to distance itself from potential failure. Ron Morris was their man. They told Morris to call a press conference with a strong Arctic backdrop, a setting no one could possibly confuse with the Doric columns of Washington. He eagerly agreed. Morris chose the reporters’ favorite spot, across the street from the Top of the World Hotel. He would stand with his back to the jagged ice of the sea. The very picture of isolation was in fact just a stone’s throw from the hotel’s warm lobby.
They gave him an “official” version of events leading up to the announcement that he was told to recite to the assembled press, a version few would question. He hung up and went to the Top of the World. As he briskly walked alone up Momegana Street, Morris’s heart raced with excitement. He was about to make the most significant announcement of his professional life—that the United States government had asked the Soviets to assist in the whale rescue.
Unversed in diplomatic protocol, he did not realize that he was part of the State Department’s scheme to downgrade the whole rescue. He was an unwitting participan
t in his own dethronement. Now that the Soviets were on the way, the U.S. government began a frantic attempt to disengage itself. The further the government could extricate itself when the Soviet ships arrived, the less damage to American prestige if the Soviets managed to steal the show. Gorbachev had stung the State Department too many times in the past. They weren’t about to take any chances over three lousy whales.
Morris pushed open the hotel’s thick steel door, brandishing a broad, knowing smile. His obsequious friends in the press corps instantly saw that something was up. “What is it?” asked Harry Chittick of ABC. “Have you heard something about the Soviets? We’re getting a lot of flak from New York. They need confirmation. The Washington bureau is ready to back me up, but I need something to go on.” Morris gave his friend Chittick an exaggerated wink as if to say, “You guessed it.”
Morris stood on his tiptoes and shouted, “Everybody listen up. How soon can you all be ready to do an important press conference?” He knew the effect his question would have. The reporters and their cameramen answered with their feet. Everyone within earshot dashed to their edit suites to fetch their equipment and ran outside to claim the best camera positions. As soon as the major networks were set up, Morris would make his announcement.
Because of the time difference, it was too late for the evening news. Morris thought that was a great shame, but in fact it was was exactly what the State Department wanted. It was a widely known secret around media-conscious Washington that Friday nights were the best time to release the worst news. Conventional wisdom dictated that it would be Monday before most people would digest it. In the case of the three whales, it would prove a gross miscalculation. It never occurred to the Foggy Bottom spin doctors that they were using conventional means to deal with an unconventional situation.
Morris carefully positioned himself atop a mound of ice silhouetted against the bleak horizon to read his proclamation. He told the shivering but intent group of two dozen reporters what the Commerce and State Departments told him to say. Namely, that it was they who worked to get the Soviet icebreaker, not Cindy Lowry, Campbell Plowden, or Greenpeace.
Morris’s account was accepted at face value. Reporters in Barrow were far enough removed from the story in Washington to have done anything else. Later, when Cindy publicly objected to being totally left out of the official version, several reporters roundly criticized her for trying to “steal” the credit. All she could do was laugh. Greenpeace couldn’t win for losing. As the news spread to the handful of reporters watching the infuriatingly nonchalant whales, they hurriedly made their way back to town. By dusk, only a small core remained, just those who opted to stay with the whales rather than chase down a talking head recounting events that were happening thousands of miles away. For the second time in three days, the media missed the news they came for. While they covered Ron Morris’s moment of glory in town, they missed the single most dramatic episode of the entire rescue.
Later that afternoon, Cindy had returned to the ice. She stood alone at the edge of the third hole. Several layers of clothing, green down pants, and a heavy white parka provided scant warmth. She marveled at the mastery of her body. It had adjusted to the Arctic long before her mind did. Mysteriously, she had stopped shivering days earlier. Once her body had become acclimated to its new environment, it had begun conserving her precious energy. For the first time since she got the call from Geoff and Craig a week before, Cindy Lowry was at peace, her mind and body as one.
As she looked out toward the white horizon, she wondered what the whales must be thinking. (The rest of us wondered if the whales thought at all.) Did they know how serious their predicament was? She wondered whether they could reach Baja, even if they could be redeemed from their Arctic catacombs. She asked Craig the same questions during a break at the Eskimo shack. His reluctance said it all. His limited expertise told him he could hold out little hope for their survival.
How could Cindy disagree? Until Wednesday night, their condition collectively deteriorated so much they almost died. Then they adopted the attitude that they were on a spa vacation, lounging in the Jacuzzi bubbles as though their troubles had magically disappeared. Did they know they were the darlings of an adoring world? Did they know that close to a billion people, 20 percent of the human species, knew about them? Did they realize they were bringing down a government across the North Pole? Did they know the Russians were on the way to save them?
Suddenly, she had a moment of peace. Knowing her anxiety would return any minute, she relished it. Closing her eyes, Cindy sat down on the ice. She concentrated intently on the silence of the Arctic dusk, broken every few minutes by the reassuringly warm sound of a whale surfacing just a few feet away. Never had she been involved in a more stressful project, but neither had she ever experienced such a moment of total peace. The irony enveloped her.
She had tried meditating before, but it never worked. She wasn’t the type. Why, she wondered, was it suddenly working on the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean, just inches from three gigantic but helpless whales? She imagined her spirit hovering a few feet above her body. Through her closed eyes, she watched the whales perform their ghostly dance. Her fears, like her sensation of cold, vanished. She feared neither for herself nor, oddly, for the whales.
Somehow, they would manage. With this revelation, Cindy’s soul reunited with her body. She gradually awoke, refreshed to her Arctic reality. She opened her eyes, radiating a smile lit by an inner tranquillity. The sight of a group of Eskimos laughing heartily in the distance entered her newly recharged consciousness. Cindy slowly walked over to say hi, and to maybe even join in the fun. A block of ice, cut from the edge of the hole, floated on the ocean surface. She saw Malik and Arnold Brower nearly doubled over in laughter. They watched Johnny Brower hamming it up as he balanced himself on the floating slab. The other Eskimos joined him in an Inupiat version of the Beach Boys’ song, “Surfin’ USA.” Johnny Brower was hanging ten in the Arctic Ocean!
It was no small feat. The slab bobbed up and down in the angry current. Staying upright required intricate balance and control. Unlike a tumble from a wave off Malibu, a wipeout here had dire consequences. If he slipped when the ice block was tipped up on its edge, he would fall through and become trapped under the ice. Mercifully, he would have only seconds of consciousness. Half a minute later, Johnny Brower would be dead, his surfing career cut short. Surely, they must know this, Cindy reassured herself. Yet they were products of the Arctic. If they could have such fun watching Johnny Brower doing his best Duke Kahanamoku imitation, she could, too.
When the silliness subsided and Johnny jumped off the slab onto the safety of solid ice, the crew finished cutting the hole. They started dismantling their equipment only to be distracted by the distant sounds of unexplained excitement coming from back near the whales. A look of terror swept across Cindy’s face. She appealed to Arnold and Malik for an explanation. Neither knew any more than she did, but the steady look in their eyes calmed her to the point where she could run with them to investigate the commotion.
Jogging across the flat ice in heavy clothes, Arnold consoled Cindy. “Everything is all right,” he assured her.
“God, what’s happened?” she cried. “Just let them be all right.”
True to his prediction, the two big whales seemed fine. As they approached the darkness of their fourteenth trapped night, the whales suddenly started exhibiting an unusual, robust urgency. The change in their behavior was clear for all to see. It was as if the whales knew something was about to happen. Without warning or explanation, the whales started surfacing more forcefully. Instead of lounging comfortably at the surface, they powerfully cleared their lungs. The mist exhaled from the pair of blowholes on top of each of the whales formed thick V-shaped clouds that hung in the air.
It wasn’t panic. It was controlled, determined energy—the building up of momentum, the starting of mighty engines. The whales were about to move.
After a last surging lu
nge for air, the whales dove deep into the dark, cold water. Instinctively, Cindy and Craig raced to the next hole. They knew the whales would move. Waiting for them to surface, they heard their unmistakable sounds. But the sounds were distant. Excitedly they turned their heads in the noise’s direction and found themselves looking toward the lead. The whales had skipped the hole where Craig and Cindy waited, surfacing unexpectedly in the next one. Seconds later they dove again, popping up two holes closer still to the lead. Suddenly, the whales were using the holes with abandon. The Eskimos had been on the right track. The whales understood. For the first time since their stranding, the whales were at last ready to resume their annual journey southward.
Cindy leapt with joy. Her whales wanted to live. She could hardly keep up with them as they hurriedly moved down the Eskimo-carved ice path. At this rate, they would reach the end of the mile-long chain in no time. While Cindy and Craig chased them, Arnold Brower and Rick Skluzacek rushed to move the deicers to each new hole the whales used. They kept one deicer going in the old hole but let the others freeze over. There was no turning back. The whales would have to put aside any second thoughts. If they tried turning around, they would find their old holes sealed within a matter of hours.
It was the high point of the rescue. For the first time since they were discovered exactly two weeks earlier, the whales moved decisively toward the open lead. Cindy could hardly contain her exultation. Tears of joy welled in her eyes, only to freeze before they could make their way down her glowing cheeks. In all her years of rescuing whales, this was the most glorious moment of all. After a week of bitter frustration, acrimony, and resignation, these whales proved to the world that they were determined to survive their brazen tryst with fate.