Big Miracle (46 page)

Before he could radio the news back to SAR headquarters, Brower noticed that a small piece of ice was stuck in Siku's blowhole. The more deeply the whale breathed, the wider the blowhole opened. But that only made the problem worse. The wider the blowhole opened, the more firmly lodged the piece of ice became.

Arnold jumped off his parked ski machine and ran out toward the edge of the ice. Looking across the wide channel, he knew the whale would die if it wasn't helped. He immediately probed the ice covering the newly refrozen channel. It was already thick enough to support not only him but his snowmobile. He turned off his radio the instant he heard the voice of Ron Morris exhorting him to get off the ice. Neither Morris nor anyone else had the slightest idea what was going on out on the ice and Arnold didn't have the time to explain it.

When he reached the struggling whales, Arnold scrambled on his belly to the edge of the hole, pulled off his gloves, and extended his outstretched hand toward the whale's obstructed blowholes.

He gently stroked the tender area to reassure the whale that he meant no harm. Apparently reassured by the Eskimo hunter's touch, the whale remained long enough for Brower to dislodge the ice. He reached his bare hand into the tender cavity and grabbed the chunk of ice. The whale writhed in pain as he pulled it out of its raw, bleeding orifice. In the intensity of his efforts to aid the choking whale, Brower didn't even notice that Malik was right beside him, caught up in a breathless race to enlarge the small hole. Malik fished chunks of floating ice from the frigid water with his gloveless hands and pitched them over his head. Malik skated across the refrozen channel to retrieve a shovel and seal pole from the back of his ski machine. The two Eskimo whalers expanded the hole until both animals could breathe safely again.

Less than a mile from the open lead and freedom, the whales were once again confined to a tiny, frightful hole. Nonetheless, the two whales made remarkable progress through the lead before they got stuck in the frozen water. Overnight, the whales swam through almost two miles of the channel. Arnold and Malik knew that if new holes weren't opened soon, the crisis their bare hands just alleviated would soon recur. Arnold switched on his walkie-talkie and radioed an urgent appeal for five chain saw crews to get on the ice as soon as possible. He and Malik decided to fall back on the only tactic that worked. Now that the pressure ridge was sliced away, the native crews could easily cut holes parallel to the channel, protecting the whales from its brutal conditions. If everyone were mobilized for a total and final push, the holes could be dug in a few hours.

Brower went right over Ron Morris's head to summon his own crews. He made his own decision without bothering to consult the man who was ostensibly his boss. Morris didn't overlook the insubordination. By early that morning, everyone had heard the horrible tale of the previous night's debacle. But that event appeared to have little effect. Morris lost his temper. He was willing to admit that much. But that changed nothing. He was still coordinator, and in his mind, his word was law. He reached for his radio and repeated his unenforceable declaration that no one was allowed on the ice. Only when his orders were flagrantly countermanded by his own subordinates did the nightmare sink in. His authority had been completely emasculated in the eyes of those he commanded.

Just minutes after their arrival, the first crew sawed open a new hole. Brower wasted no time waiting for the whales to make the discovery on their own. He flipped around the ends of his seal pole and shoved the blunt end in the water. He gently poked the whales so as to annoy them enough to leave the hole. After a few less than comfortable jolts to the mid-section, the whales got the message and headed toward the only haven they saw: the new Eskimo hole. For the time being at least, the whales were safe.

Morris raced out to the whales yet again in another mistaken attempt to confront Brower. When he arrived, he found the Eskimo and his crew working frantically to open new holes for the whales. No matter how he ranted and raved, Morris couldn't seem to get Brower's attention. Brower just kept digging while trying to ignore the sounds as though they came from an errant pest.

Finally, as if to swat it away, he lifted his eyes from the holes on which they were focused. He glared piercingly into Morris's eyes before he quietly uttered the same words he used only hours before. “It's out of your hands.” He withdrew his gaze and returned to his task. The message was clear. If he knew what was good for him, Morris would not challenge Brower or his men again. Morris got the message and withdrew to safer terrain, the SAR hangar.

From there he contacted Sergei Reshetov aboard the
Vladimir Arseniev
. The Russian captain didn't need to remind Morris how anxious the Soviets were to get home. Reshetov also did not have to be told about what was happening on the ice. All he had to do was peer down from his perch eight stories above it. Surprising even to him, the channels his ship plowed through just twelve hours before had frozen over solid. He knew his ship's job wasn't done. There were more passes to be made before he could get home.

By noon, the
Arseniev
wasn't alone. Bill Allen had climbed in the cockpit of his oddly named screw tractor and planted a huge American flag atop the cab. Amid cheers, Allen's versatile tractor plowed through the Soviet paths, spitting out smaller chunks of ice. Wrapped in the mantle of Old Glory, Allen was determined to prove his country was still the key force in the rescue. Billy Bob Allen was stealing the show.

“Oh, me,” he exulted as he spun his way through the channels. A camera crew captured radiant shots of Billy Bob Allen driving the tractor like a child in his first bumper car at an amusement park.

Finally, after almost two weeks, Bill Allen himself was out. He was so excited as he twisted and turned he forgot to check his fuel gauge. When he did, it was too late. The screw tractor had run out of gas. By late afternoon, standing atop his idled tractor, Allen exulted ebulliently as he watched the whales swimming freely in the channel he helped cut.

“Just get a load of that Archie Bowers,” he said to Pete Leathard. “Mercy, that son of a bitch sure can work, can't he?” It was the highest compliment Allen could bestow on the Eskimo leader. Now, there was no turning back. The whales were only a few hundred yards from the lead.

Operation Breakout, cum Operation Breakthrough was a success. More than two weeks and $5.5 million later, there was nothing more to do. Eskimos, their Caucasian countrymen, and Russians had cut a ten-mile path through thick Arctic ice. All they could do was wait for the whales to do the rest. As the sun set on Thursday, October 27—twenty days after the whales were first found off Point Barrow—a wave of relief swept over everyone. Rescuers were delighted that the whales could now swim free. Billy Bob was delighted at the prospect of finally closing his hemorrhaging checkbook, and reporters were anxious to go home.

Thursday night, Morris gave what he promised would be his final press conference. While not absolutely sure, Geoff, Craig, and the other biologists were reasonably certain that shortly after dark, the whales would slip through the last vestiges of the channel and enter the unfettered waters of the open lead. Their Barrow misadventure behind them, the whales were almost surely free. At first light, Friday morning, Randy Crosby flew the final mission. Flying twenty miles up and down the lead, he saw not a trace. The whales were gone.

Fittingly, Malik was the last American to see the two whales before darkness. Petting Siku good-bye, he wished the two creatures the luck he knew they would need to survive on their long voyage. Ordinary gray whales would be hard pressed to make it through the multiple dangers that lay ahead. Treacherous ice floes extended for several hundred miles along Alaska's northern and western rims. Next, there were pods of killer whales waiting for weak and wounded prey. And finally, if they made it that far, the whales would have to dance through minefields of great white sharks lurking off the coast of the Pacific Northwest in search of weakened prey.

But these whales had proven themselves anything but ordinary. These whales touched hundreds of millions of hearts and captivated the fickle attention of a self-obsessed world. They brought together people, industries, and nations in a way man himself never could. If only for a fortnight, the three whales were at the center of the world. They were history's most fortunate creatures.

Lucky whales.

24

Consequences

Success or not, the media dubbed Friday, October 28, Operation Breakout's final day. If, at first light, the whales still hadn't left the ice pack, we defiantly resolved that we would. We phoned our loved ones, told them the story was over, and booked flights home.

Everyone agreed. There was nothing more to be done. Now that the pressure ridge no longer barred the whales from entering the open channel of water, the whales remained the only obstacle to their own freedom. We desperately tried to convince our assignment editors that the rescue's human aspect had concluded. From every indication, the American people were tiring of the story. They, too, had seen enough. If ever Operation Breakout gave the media and the world a chance to cut and run, this seemed the moment.

But when Malik discovered the lead whale Siku nearly frozen in the icebreaker's paths on Thursday morning, Barrow was overwhelmed by feelings of frustration. On Wednesday night, October 26, the whales seemed free. But the next morning, they once again demonstrated their penchant for getting stuck. The same faulty genes that trapped them the first time did it again. The whales could not find their way out of the icebreaker channel before it froze solid overnight. Instead of finally beginning their migration, they became stranded in yet another tiny hole. It seemed like the whole mess was starting all over again. Fortunately for the whales and the weary media, the Russians remained one final night. The whales at last slipped through the channels to open water sometime early Friday morning when the icebreakers returned to clear new pathways through the ice.

After almost two weeks at twenty degrees below zero, there was just no more left to give. From its outset, Operation Breakout was nothing more than an artificial enterprise, created not for the whales or their species, but for the media. Like any other news story, Operation Breakout needed a beginning, a middle, and, most important, an end. If it appeared that the rescue would continue indefinitely, that most critical criterion would be violated. But of course, the very notion of the rescue operating in a vacuum was absurd. The media was the rescue.

The contrast to Operation Breakout's final hours could not have been more striking. Barrow was the Arctic equivalent to Saigon right before the fall. People were desperate to get out.

It wasn't the NVA we feared, but Barrow itself. Don Oliver, a veteran of that frantic Indochina exodus, worked just as busily to get out of Barrow. He was helping his video editor, Steve Shim, pack all of NBC's equipment when the phone rang. It was NBC's Los Angeles bureau. Immediately, Oliver knew he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear. Oliver rejoiced in his industry nickname, El Diablo. Remarkably, Barrow and its endless privations had yet to ignite the temper for which he was legendary.

“We want you to stay on a couple of days,” came the unsteady voice from Los Angeles. “You know, just in case the whales come back.” It was so cold in Oliver's Top of the World Hotel room, you could almost see steam pour out of his ears. The thought of still another day in Barrow made Oliver long for Saigon, April 1975. Watching his colleagues head for warmer climes pushed Oliver over the edge. El Diablo was about to erupt.

“In case they come back?” he shrieked incredulously, his face crimson. “We're booked on the 12:30 flight and we're not going to miss it. The whales are gone, gone, gone. They aren't coming back, and if they do, that will be their problem, not mine! You got that?”

The hotel's entire first floor fell silent. This was an impressive display of rage, even for the master himself. Maybe he was out for a personal best, his producer Jerry Hansen joked. We could all sympathize. Oliver, like the rest of us, had served his time. Why was his sentence extended when all other prisoners at Barrow Correctional were being paroled?

Harry Chittick, the ABC producer, walked toward us from the far end of the hall seemingly unfazed by Don Oliver's deafening outburst. Like the rest of us, he had a plane to catch. As he passed Oliver's open door, none of us spoke. We wondered how Chittick would handle the delicate situation. Would he slip quietly past, pretending to ignore the erupting red-caped devil, or would he peak in to catch the master of rage in action.

Getting to the door, Chittick stopped, turned to Oliver and waved good-bye. Pausing in midtirade, Oliver turned to Chittick, flashed him a brief but warm smile, winked, stretched out his hand in a gesture of farewell, and picked up his tantrum right where he left off. Chittick laughed, hoping Oliver's latest explosion would produce the desired results. Oliver flashed Chittick a jubilant thumbs-up sign.

For Oran Caudle, it was like waking from a dream. Just hours before, he had worked frantically to keep the North Slope Borough television studio from collapsing under the strain of twenty-six demanding broadcasters barking orders in half a dozen languages. Suddenly, life hurtled back to pre-Breakout normality. There were no more network feeds, no more pushing, no more shoving and, thank God, no more shouting. For the first time in more than two weeks, Caudle turned off the North Slope Borough television transmitter. As the light on the console faded, Caudle knew another decade might pass before it was ever used again.

But Oran's work remained incomplete. He had only a few hours to convert his global communications center into a stage ready fit to host a hundred Eskimo students from Ipalook Elementary dressed as goblins and ghosts for “Fright Night 1989.” The local Halloween pageant was a major annual event on Channel 20. For Barrow's youngest residents, the whales swam free in the nick of time. The whale rescue helped fulfill the electronic media's technological promise of a global village. The world had been bound together in a common, seemingly noble aim. But the minute that aim was achieved, the world went home. For all the time the media spent in Barrow, few of us stayed to reflect on our impact on that remarkable hamlet we so briefly called home.