Lotte executed a perfect teen eye roll and stuck the landing with a sigh. “Of course not, those people can get old pieces of wood anywhere. My point is that we are going to walk out there in a few minutes and get our photograph taken with that fallen branch, no? And what is the point of that? It’s to show people that we are aware that there was a windstorm. Fine. But there are other things going on besides windstorms that we need to show awareness of. So I’m just saying that when we are done getting our photo taken standing next to this fucking branch, instead of letting the maintenance crew haul it away and put it in a log chipper or whatever, maybe I cut some pieces out of it and use it as a way to show that we are also aware of bigger issues like climate change and the damage it causes.”
Saskia was just on the verge of saying that this was a wonderful idea when Lotte’s phone buzzed again and she stood up. “I’m worried about Toon,” she said. “I want to go to the beach.”
“Scheveningen?”
“Just north of there.”
“What’s going on with Toon?” This was a schoolmate of Lotte’s and a part of her social circle.
“He went surfing this morning, early. There are big waves today because of the storm. Something weird is happening—I can’t make sense of these messages.”
Saskia became aware that Willem was standing in a doorway. He was facing in her general direction, but she could tell from the movements of his eyes and his somewhat slack-jawed appearance that he was reading some virtual content in his glasses. “Your Majesty,” he said, “sorry to interrupt, but I have to make you aware that—”
“Something weird is happening at the beach?” Saskia guessed and exchanged a look with Lotte.
“I think it is possible that we have a major disaster happening as we speak.”
Saskia sat still and absorbed that for a moment.
Lotte slumped forward and put her forehead on her arms.
Sirens were sounding. Emergency vehicles passing through the Haagse Bos.
“Such as—what?” Saskia asked. “A mass shooting? A bomb? Shipwreck?”
“Something about foam.”
“What!?”
Willem shook his head helplessly. “That’s all I know.”
Saskia stood up. “Get the bicycles.”
Even bicycles were almost overkill. Huis ten Bosch was just a few thousand strides from the edge of the North Sea. They could have walked to it briskly in less than an hour. On bicycles, trailed by security and support staff in cars, they covered the distance in minutes.
Along this stretch of the North Sea coast, the basic shape of the land was a flat beach that grew wider or narrower according to the tides. Rising abruptly from that was a line of dunes, held together by scrubby vegetation that had found purchase in the loose sandy soil and survived the wind and spray that came off the sea almost continuously during much of the year. Inland of the dunes’ crest, the ground dropped lower and was spattered with small pools embedded in marshy ground. That described the coastline in its natural state from the Hook of Holland, a few kilometers south of The Hague, north as far as Frisia. The Hague’s bit of it was a popular recreational beach, serviced by a row of restaurants, bars, and so on built well back from the surf, nestled at the base of the steep bluff or strung out above along its brow. This, of course, was the high season for beachgoing. Conditions had been fine and warm until the onset of this morning’s weather.
That sort of development—the touristy stuff that you could see at any beach in the world—terminated abruptly as one went north up the beach past Scheveningen. Beyond a certain point there were
suddenly no businesses, and very few human traces: just a long wire fence that had something to do with maintaining the dune, and a couple of reinforced concrete bunkers that the Nazis had embedded in the sand as part of their coastal defense system. A paved bicycle path ran along the top of the dune, but you couldn’t see that from below, just occasional wooden staircases linking it to the beach. Other than that, it was a nature preserve. During the winter, the place could be astonishingly deserted given that it was only a short walk from the capital of one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
An exception occurred whenever conditions of wind and sea combined to produce large waves. Then, this coastline drew surfers. They all had apps that alerted them when conditions were likely to be right. They would flock to whatever stretch of the Dutch coastline looked like it would have the biggest and best waves. Given the climate, they generally wore wet suits.