“Otherwise, the usual rules apply: Do not talk about KPS business on the flight, or once we land or to anyone who is not KPS. When we arrive, KPS intake personnel will be there to get us on our way, and so on and so forth, you know the drill, and you new folks, just keep an eye on everyone else and follow us. Do not get lost or you stay at Thule Air Base for the winter. You do not want that life for yourself.” More laughter.
“Weather report for Thule is cloudy and overcast but above freezing”—a small bit of cheering here—“with light winds coming in from the east. Rest and relax, call anyone you need to call, get in those last emails and Facebook posts, because it’s all going bye-bye soon. That’s it!”
MacDonald sat back down. The general conversation noise started up again, and people started reaching for their phones.
Niamh was one of them. “Okay, so, having a base named ‘Tanaka’ is not helpful at all,” they said, after a minute. “The first Google references are for a baseball player.”
“I’m on Wikipedia,” Kahurangi said. “It says ‘Tanaka’ is the fourth most common family name in Japan. There are a bunch of notable Japanese with the name.”
“So we have no clue about anything other than we’re going to Greenland,” Aparna said.
“And that we’re probably doing something with polar bears,” I noted.
“Or seals,” Aparna added.
“So, let me ask this,” I said. “I know why I’m here. I was broke and desperate and needed a job or I was going to be homeless and starving. What about you all?”
The newbies all looked at each other. “Pretty much the same?” Kahurangi said.
“It’s a fucking pandemic out there, mate,” Niamh said.
“I’m here because of a bad breakup,” Aparna said. “And, well. Money.”
“It’s like the foreign legion for nerds,” I said, and laughed. “With polar bears.”
“Or seals,” Aparna added.
* * *
A few hours later, we newbies, along with every other KPS staffer, filed out of the Chesapeake Club and boarded a charter plane. As promised we were all seated together, but I was in a row with an unoccupied seat, which was taken by a young airman, who asked me why I was going to Thule. I gave him the line about being from the Department of the Interior. I have never seen someone’s eyes go dead with disinterest that fast. He put on headphones; I went to sleep.
Six and a half hours later, we were at Thule Air Base. I wondered how long we would stay, and the answer was, as long as it took for us to get off the plane, get collected by KPS staff, and shoved into a pair of what I was later told were cold-modified Chinook helicopters, which took off immediately and started heading inland.
“Where are we going?” I asked Tom Stevens, who had waved me over to sit next to him as I got into the helicopter. We had to lean in to each other to talk. “I don’t know much about Greenland, but I do know there’s nothing in the middle of it but glaciers and cold.”
“Okay, see, this is cool,” Tom said. “There was a U.S. base called Camp Century that officially closed in the 1960s. It was a military research base. It had its own nuclear reactor for power that was shut down when the base closed. Right?”
“Okay.”
“It’s a lie,” Tom said. “A cover-up. Camp Century never closed down. Neither did its nuclear reactor. KPS uses it now. That’s where we’re going.”
“We’re going to a secret nuclear base in Greenland?” I said.
“I told you it was cool.”
“Okay, but how do you keep a nuclear base secret?” I asked. I pointed upward. “I don’t know much about physics, but I know the Russians and the Chinese have spy satellites. I’m pretty sure they’d notice, I don’t know, neutrons or whatever.”
“You’ll see,” Tom said. I was suddenly very annoyed at the smug secrecy of KPS.
A bit over an hour later and we were on the ground at Camp Century, hustled from the helicopters to transport trucks to a garage-like area that sealed up behind us. A KPS staffer told us to put any carry-ons, backpacks, or personal effects on a baggage claim–like conveyor belt. I looked over to Tom at this.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Sterilization. You’ll get everything back.” I shrugged and put everything on a conveyor.
Then we queued up and checked in at tables. When I got to the front, I was given a bundle of plastic-sealed clothes and shoes and a bag, and pointed to a shower area.