Nearly forty dead volcanic cones rose up from its surface of lava and ash. For centuries these belonged to the seabirds who came there to breed, and the giant turtles who, once a year, swam from Brazil guided by some imperishable logic to lay their eggs before swimming back again. Humans had been dissuaded from any settlement by the scarcity of fresh water. It hadn’t been entirely uninhabited in its earlier days, however. Sailors visiting Ascension in 1726 discovered a tent and the diary belonging to a Dutch mariner abandoned there the year before as punishment for sleeping with another crew member. The diary recorded his descent into terror and insanity.

It took British aggression to see the island’s potential. In 1815 Napoleon was imprisoned on Saint Helena to the southeast. The British garrisoned Ascension as a precaution against it being used as a base by any French troops trying to rescue him. By the time of Napoleon’s death, the island had become a midocean supply station and hospital for fever-stricken crews from the anti-slavery patrols. Eventually, freed West African slaves from the Krumen tribe were brought ashore to provide cheap labor. In 1823 the island passed into the hands of the Royal Marines, and in 1899, when the first telegraph cable arrived, it brought civilians into the population. By 1921, the navy had handed over all administration to the telegraph company, who now operated under the name Cable and Wireless.

That was the most peaceful period: just two hundred people on the rock, handling the wires. Then World War II arrived and fifteen hundred US troops descended in a matter of days. They worked around the clock to build the airfield, shielding the floodlights from enemy ships. The stony ground chewed up their drill bits, and the men—four thousand of them at the height of the war—slept on the beaches and among the rocks.

When the war ended, they all left. And none of the available accounts was very clear about what happened next. A year later, some Americans returned to survey the place, and a few months after that, new constructions appeared: radars and antennae and installations more mysterious than both. The Cold War had begun.