A great whale is worth $2 million. The size of that number so terrified Ralph Chami, the economist who appraised the whales, that he sought refuge in a church for the first time in 30 years. Inside St. Matthew’s Cathedral in the District, a few blocks from Chami’s office at the International Monetary Fund, the economist said he had “a conversation with the Maker. I said: ‘If you aim to humiliate me, there are other ways of doing it.’”