Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [117]
In the middle of our conversation, the clerk from the community center ran over and said, “You’ve got an urgent call from Senator Murkowski’s office. You can take it in the community center.”
We ran across the village and up three flights of stairs. Breathlessly I picked up the phone. Bruce Evans was on the line. He said he had finally gotten a response from the U.S. Coast Guard, and they would not support the project. They said that if the swim was too dangerous, they wouldn’t allow me to do it. And if the swim wasn’t dangerous, we didn’t need them.
Very disappointed, I hung up the phone, only to get a call from David Karp. He had been talking with Pat Omiak, the mayor of Little Diomede, for us. Omiak still had not wavered in his boat-rental fee.
Worse than that, Omiak had been watching Big Diomede for the last two days through the telescope in the community center. The Soviets had moved two ships the size of football fields just a mile south of Big Diomede.
All day and evening long, the Soviets had been deploying ships to the island. They had been digging in, posting guards around the island, and off-loading men, guns, and equipment. Omiak said he hadn’t seen as much activity on Big Diomede since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Omiak didn’t trust the Soviets at all. He had had relatives who once lived on Big Diomede; people from both islands used to go back and forth, visiting. But in 1976, Omiak’s relatives had been removed, forced to relocate on the Siberian mainland, so that Big Diomede could be transformed into a tightly secure military installation.
More recently, the Soviets had arrested three villagers from Little Diomede who had been out walrus hunting and inadvertently strayed into Soviet waters in the fog. They had been detained for fifty-two days in a Siberian prison.
With all the troop movement in the area, it appeared to Omiak and the elders on Little Diomede that the Soviets were about to blockade the Bering Strait. Omiak radioed the Alaskan National Guard and alerted the U.S. Air Force. The air force immediately sent pilots up to check out the situation.
When the Soviets saw the U.S. jets on their radar screens, they scrambled their own planes, and sent out fliers to see what the Americans were up to.
Bruce Evans called me from Senator Murkowski’s office and confirmed all of this. Murkowski’s office had been in touch with the air force and with the Soviet ambassador, and the ambassador promised to find out what was going on.
In the morning, I looked at my watch. One day away from my proposed swim date, and I couldn’t fathom why we hadn’t heard from the Soviets. I was just about to enjoy a bite of a bagel when Claire Richardson, the reporter from KNOM, ran into the community center, grabbed me by the arm, and said, “Lynne, come quickly, David Karp’s on the phone.
“David has heard from the Soviets. Come on, hurry, run! He’s on the phone at a friend’s house. Hurry, he might get disconnected. He’s frantic. He’s been trying to reach you all night long, but he couldn’t get through, so he called my friend.”
We ran through the eerily quiet village and barged into the home. No one was there, so I grabbed the phone that was lying off the hook on a small end table and said hello.
It was David Karp. He started crying. He tried to talk, but he couldn’t get the words out. He began to cough and choke, he was crying so hard.
Oh no! Oh no, no, no! my mind screamed, The Soviets have said no. After all this, they have said no.
Bracing myself against a counter,