Come Together    Come Together
 
 5:00 AM (Pacific time)
 Dawn had not yet arrived in the sleeping town of Whitehorse. Drab houses
were nestled in the tufts of snow that lay slowly melting in the spring
breeze. Nothing human stirred. Ptarmigans floated listlessly in the air
and swallows pecked the moss that lay beneath the snow. On the ridge
overlooking the valley east stood a solitary house. Morning had not yet
begun for the inhabitant.
 
 5:30 AM
 Silence. The invading condition that occupied the house had mere seconds
to live. The radio alarm clock in the bedroom beeped red and blasted out
the hazy diatribe of the local mouthpiece. GOOOOOD morning, Whitehorse!
Wild Man Jack Rivers here to brighten your day! Okay, early birds, haul
your sleepy butts out of bed with this golden classic from the
Beatles....Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly....
 Constable Alexander Mackenzie Reynolds stretched over a lanky, muscular
arm and shut the radio off. Hopping out of bed and rubbing the sleep from
his eyes, he went to the bathroom and began to prepare for the day.
 
 6:00 AM
 Alexander straightened his Stetson and did up the last button on his
coat. He jangled his house keys, checked his breastpocket for his airplane
tickets and tightened the handcuffs that were attached to the handle of a
black briefcase. He threw his dufflebag over his shoulder and shut the
door.
 6:30 AM
 Alexander walked to the counter in the airfield terminal. He dropped his
dufflebag next to him and presented his tickets to the girl who took one
look at them and then pushed them back. The look of quiet expectation left
his face.
 "What's wrong?" he asked.
 The girl sadly shook her head.
 "I'm sorry, Constable Reynolds, but we're overbooked."
 Alexander's face went pale with disappointment.
 "What do you mean 'overbooked'? I ordered these tickets two weeks ago.
You said there was nothing wrong. Just check your manifest again. There
must be some mistake."
 "There is no mistake, Constable," the girl confirmed, "I'm sorry."
 Alexander pulled away from the counter. His brow furrowed in frustration.
In the corner of his eye, a large, slovenly hulk with sandy red hair
chewed on a Snickers bar and scrutinized him.
 "Can I help you?" Alexander huffed.
 "I's thinkin' I could helps you, Officer," the man said.
 "How could you do that?"
 "I have a plane and I'm goin' as far as Edmonton. Ya needs a ride, do ya?
 Alexander stared at this man plainly.
 "Look-" Alexander pointed at the name badge sewed on the man's overalls,
"Biff-there are things in this world that a man out of pride and decency
will not do and flying to Edmonton with you is one of them. Thank you
anyway."
 "Suits yourself," with that, Biff walked from Alexander.
 Alexander stared at his watch and cast his gaze over the briefcase.
Throwing his head back in despair, he approached Biff and accepted the
offer. 
 "That'll be $100," Biff said between chews.
 Alexander burst.
 "$100! Do you think I'm crazy?!"
 Biff simply shrugged.
 "Ya needs to go and hey, gas ain't cheap."
 "Tell me, Biff," Alexander pleaded sternly, "they do have morals on the
Rock, do they?"
 "None that I've heard of," Biff replied and walked from the terminal
inviting Alexander to join him. Alexander's Irish temper was quelled once
more when he realized the rarity of his opportunity. He only hoped that
this would be the only catastrophe of the day.
 
 7:30 AM (Central time)
 "Anna. Oh, Anna."
 Constable Benton Fraser stood at the foot of his unruly daughter's bed.
Still wearing his red longjohns, he had not even begun to prepare for the
day. He was not worried for himself but for Anna. Today she was insistent
on war and Fraser could not stand for it. He pulled the blankets from her
bed revealing a small elfin child with black hair and gleaming blue eyes.
With her white bear tucked securely under her arm, she jumped and started
to bolt. Fraser picked her up and swung her to a stable position.
 "Oh, please," she entreated, "can't I stay with you today? I'll be good.
I won't bring my fingerpaints. Please?"
 Fraser shook his head at the four-year-old.
 "I'm sorry, Anna. That will not do. Not today. Remember those important
people I told you about? They are coming today. Even if I wanted to, I
still couldn't take you with me today. And what is wrong with staying with
Francesca? I thought you liked her?"
 Anna stubbed her toe on the bed and avoided her father's eyes.
 "I do but I won't be able do anything fun there. Please? I'll be good."
 Fraser felt defeated; if he let Anna stay with him she may very well
cause something to burst and with Chief Inspector Forbes arriving that
event would be least desired. If he let Anna stay with Francesca, she
would be bored out of her wits, unhappy. Fraser was always at an end. And
she couldn't accompany him forever.
 "Anna, please listen. As much as I would like to have you with me we
can't always be together. One day, you'll have to start school and then
you'll discover a more interesting world outside the consulate. Wouldn't
that be more exciting than a stuffy office?"
 

 "Give me one reason why I can't come with you today?" Anna asked in a
last-ditch attempt to defy her father.
 "Anna-well-you tend to set fire to things."
 "That's no reason..."
 Fraser gave her a stern look. Anna conceded to defeat.
 
 9:00 AM 
 Ray brightened as he opened up the door for Anna. His day off would prove
engaging. She glumly got in, covering her face with her hair.
 "Don't look so gloomy, Annie," Ray consoled her, "I'm sure Frannie will
have something fun for you to do."
 Fraser climbed into the car and placed his Stetson on his lap. In the
rearview mirror he observed the lowly Anna.
 "Anna, I thought we talked about this. You'll be happy with Francesca."
 Ray shook his head.
 "If I had to spend a whole day with Frannie I'd be unhappy, too."
 "Ray, you are not alleviating matters."
 Ray turned to the back.
 "Don't worry, Annie. After I get the Bulls' tickets, we'll play
'Hatchet', okay?"
 Anna nodded. In grim shock, Fraser swivelled his head.
 "Hatchet?!"
 Ray hesitated.
 "It violates nothing in the Geneva Convention."
 Fraser was still worried. After all, 'Hatchet' did not sound like an
activity the whole family could enjoy.
 Ray pulled up to the consulate. Fraser and Diefenbaker stepped out.
 "Promise me you won't play 'Hatchet'."
 Ray nodded reluctantly. Fraser reached over to Anna and kissed her on the
cheek.
 "Be a good girl."
 Ray and Anna pulled away. Fraser had the gnawing intuition that he would
see her again shortly.
 
 9:00 AM (Mountain time)
 Alexander braced himself as Biff landed the Sandpiper on the Edmonton
tarmac. Light flurries skipped off the windscreen. When Alexander was sure
that the plane had stopped, he grabbed on to the briefcase, stepped out of
the plane and into the terminal. He walked over to the counter and waited
as the dark-haired clerk gabbed on the telephone. He tapped impatiently on
the counter with his fingertips. The more he tapped, the more the girl
gabbed. Finally, she got off the telephone, replaced her silver dangly
earring and huffed at Alexander.
 "Can I help you?"
 "Yes," Alexander replied trying to cage in his impatience with the
impudent clerk, "I need one ticket from here to Chicago, please."
 "We have no flights going in that direction," she replied pertly and
scuffed her nails.
 Alexander stiffened his lip.
 "You didn't even check your computer."
 "I already know so I don't need to check and don't tell me how to do my
job."
 "Look, madame," Alexander returned, "I am simply asking for one ticket
which I am sure you can give if you will only check your computer, run it
up for me...I will pay in cash."
 The clerk clucked at him.
 "I will do no such thing. If this flight is so important to you why don't
you ask Air Nigeria or something. I'm sure they will give you a ticket,
your Royal Highness."
 Barely being able to contain his fury, Alexander left the counter shaking
with an ungodly rage. First, it was overbooking, now, a smarty-pants clerk
who wouldn't even give him the time of day. He slumped onto the lounge
chairs in the waiting area pressing the tips of his fingers together like
conduits conducting the energy of anger. The flurries raged outside; the
hounds of war had been unleashed inside of Alexander. A ragged man
appeared before him.
 "Do you need to go to Chicago?"
 Alexander stared at this miracle in a CO-OP cap.
 "Yes."
 Follow me."
 Blindly, like a child, he followed.
 
 9:50 AM (Central time)
 Inspector Margaret Thatcher peered out the consulate window nervously.
Dressed in a red dress instead of the standard Mountie uniform, she waited
for the arrival of the inspectors. Everything had been put into place. The
casefiles updated, reshuffled and replaced in their proper order, the
personnel tutored in their already impeccable manners and the entire
building was spit-shined from the flagpost to the front steps. The
catering and hotel reservations had been prepared long since. Thatcher
spared no expense. She dreaded this day in a subconsciously cowardly way
but was drawn to it. The idea of order with an iron fist seemed an
appealing topic. She was glad that Anna wasn't here. Sure, children,
particularly children of subordinates, were supposed to be charming and
therefore treated with the utmost courtesy that Thatcher was capable of
dishing out to an underage being. But Anna was different. She made Pearl
from The Scarlet Letter seem distinctly angelic. Nay, even the Reservoir
Dogs had an air of sweetness about them. Still stinging from the balloon
incident, Thatcher put ill thoughts out her mind and concentrated on the
present. She strode over to Turnbull's desk. She aligned the books on his
desk once more and fluffed up the single carnation standing in a vase of
tepid water.
 "Are you alright, Inspector Thatcher?" Turnbull asked.
 "Alright?" she repeated in a nervous laugh, "Of course I am alright. I am
fine, serene, calm. In fact, if you looked calm up in the dictionary, you
would see my name."
 

 Turnbull picked up the dictionary from the corner of his desk and
Thatcher motioned him to put it away. Fraser, his hands twitching
slightly, addressed the two.
 "They're here," he said calmly.
 Standing at attention, they waited for the inspectors to come up the
stairs. Thatcher swallowed an obstruction.
 "Why Forbes?" she asked in a hushed voice to Fraser. "I mean, why not
Franklin or Hawthorne? Why couldn't Sgt. Frobisher do this himself? After
all, this is just a midyear inspection."
 "Chief Inspector Forbes is our superior officer," Fraser whispered back,
"He has a wealth of experience in the field. I am sure our report to him
will be most satisfactory."
 "For God's sake, Fraser, he's Darth Vader."
 A tall man with a wave of black hair and piercing iceberg blue eye
arrived at the top of the stairs. He stared at everyone, scrutinizing them
in a sinister fashion. He lifted off his cloak and handed it to a slightly
shorter man with the same burr of black hair. He smothered a cough.
Immediately, Fraser remembered the fateful visions in his youth of the
notorious Darth Vader as he stepped aboard the Death Star. Turnbull wished
somehow that Sir Alec Guinness would come and give everyone peace of mind.
But that was not to be. No, Forbes was a force to be reckoned with, an
angry muskox tormented one too many times. Indeed, Chief Inspector
Alexander J. Forbes held everyone in the room in a state of primal fear.
 Behind Forbes, a sprightly older man pounced up the steps behind him.
Sergeant Buck Frobisher, superior officer and Mountie legend
extraordinaire, saluted everyone. They saluted in return.
 "As you all know," Buck began, "we are here for our midyear inspection.
Forbes and I expect your complete cooperation."
 Buck strolled over to Fraser.
 "It's good to see you again, Benton," Buck smiled. "How is
little...Emily?"
 "Anna," Fraser corrected him.
 "Anna. That's right. Little Annie. She's fine, is she?"
 "Quite."
 "Cut her first teeth yet?"
 "She's four, sir."
 Buck nodded.
 "Right. As you were."
 Thatcher saluted Forbes.
 "Is there any particular area which you would like to commence, sir?"
 "Coffee," said the young man next to Forbes, " and lemon tea for the
chief inspector."
 Caught off guard, Thatcher nodded.
 "Of course..."
 "Constable Robert Bruce Forbes, attache for the chief inspector," he
introduced himself.
 Thatcher sent Fraser and Turnbull to get some coffee for the inspectors.
Robert leaned over to Turnbull and whispered that he would like some
whiskey in his cup. Fraser and Turnbull went downstairs to get the coffee.
From the window, he could see Ray's Riv pull up in front. Wracked with
worry for Anna, he ran out to meet Ray. Francesca tugged Anna out of the
car and Ray, halted by familial duty and unsurceasing sorrow, slugged over
to Fraser with his hands in his pockets.
 "Anna, what's wrong?" Fraser knelt down to her height and hugged her.
 "You want to know what's wrong, Fraser, I'll tell you," Francesca cut in,
"your daughter is the root of all evil. That's what's wrong."
 "What did she do?" Fraser asked.
 "I"ll tell you what your little angel did. She ruined my kitchen, that's
what she did."
 Too stunned to be angry at the imp, Fraser looked with amazement at
Francesca.
 "She took a roasting chicken, four cans of tomato paste, my niece's Ken
doll and killed some Scottish guy named Wally Williams or something like
that. All over our kitchen!"
 "It's going to take us forever to clean off the ceiling," Ray added.
 "It was for The Greater Chicago Avant-Garde Film Fest, "Anna explained.
"I also have the death of Simon Fraser and you should see the Battle of
Bannockburn."
 "I want to see nothing of the sort," Fraser rasped.
 Fraser looked at Ray as if to possibly receive some sort of assurance by
his friend.
 "I can't help you, Benny," Ray shook his head. "She destroyed our
kitchen. I covered for her when the mayor had his little "accident", I
investigated the corner store incident in a slipshod manner, I even turned
a blind eye when she released the chemical weapon on Peoria but I can't do
this. See ya around...in about thirty years."
 Ray and Francesca drove away. Anna had given up hope of a swift reprieval
of justice. Fraser glared at her with an angry heat that children feel
when they are definitely in trouble.
 "The wages of sin, Anna..."
 
 11:00 AM (Central time)
 The plane had landed only a few minutes ago in the old airfield north of
Chicago. Clutching onto the briefcase as though it were his very life,
Alexander hitched a ride into town, wired and extremely unhappy. But after
having enough, Alexander embraced the culture of hope; a hope that he
would make it through the day without being killed and, more importantly,
without losing the briefcase. He staggered into the Greyhound bus depot
and asked for a ticket. Amazingly, without incident, he got one. He
climbed on to the dingy bus and sat next to a little boy who apparently
was sitting by himself. The boy gazed at him with innocent brown eyes.
 

 "You can't sit here," he said meekly but succinctly, "my mama sits here."
 Alexander ignored the boy and stared straight ahead of him. He had enough
and wanted no more. He turned his head at the slight puff of hot breath. A
very large angry woman glared at him and in what seemed like slow-motion,
raised her leather handbag and swung it at Alexander's head. He fell
crumpled to the floor.
 "Stay away from my little boy!"
 Alexander ignored her and lay crouched in a fetal ball on the bus floor,
trying desperately to be oblivious to the world that had, for some reason,
been so cruel to him today.
 

 Fraser put Anna in the supplies' room and left her facing a placard on
the wall reading- I WILL NOT MARTYR ROASTING CHICKENS. Thatcher walked up
to him just as he closed the door.
 "What are you doing, Constable?"
 Fraser was hesitant to answer her after the balloon "unpleasantness" but
knew that he would have to confess to her out of loyalty to his superior
officer and out of fear of the shrew.
 "I was in the supplies' room..getting...an eraser."
 It was a bald-faced lie, the only form of lying Fraser was capable of.
Naturally, Thatcher saw through it.
 "I will ask you again Fraser, in the simplest way I know how,
what-are-you-doing?"
 "Right now, I am breathing, standing, existing. In fact, David Hume had
an interesting theory on that..."
 Thatcher grew impatient.
 "Are you out of your wits?"
 Fraser looked at her innocently.
 "In what capacity?"
 "Fraser!"
 Fraser looked down at his feet.
 "Anna is in the supplies' room, ma'am."
 Thatcher shook with fear.
 "Oh no! Oh no! Get rid of her! You get her out of here quickly. You're
her father. Tell her she's adopted."
 Appalled, Fraser shook his head.
 "I will do no such thing. She will stay in the supplies' room until I
tell her to come out. Everything is under control."
 But Thatcher, now bereft of reason, could not be assured or consoled. She
knelt at Turnbull's feet weeping wretchedly.
 "I'll lose my job," she sobbed.
 Turnbull tried to comfort her.
 "That's right," he said, " the dream is over."
 Fraser scolded Turnbull.
 "Turnbull, don't say that! (At least not when she's listening)"
 "Ma'am, we have nothing to fear from Anna," Fraser continued. "I have
placed her in the supplies' room and I have her word that she will not try
to leave it."
 Her eyes swollen, Thatcher swivelled her head and gazed at Fraser.
 "You know her word means nothing!" she shot back. "She promised she would
never play with the firehoses and she did! Oh! I am finished..."
 Forbes' deep, throaty voice summoned the three into the main office.
 "I heard snivelling," he said, followed by a cough, "What was it?"
 Thatcher shook her head.
 "I assure you, sir, no snivelling took place. It is strictly prohibited
on the premises."
 "I know snivelling when I hear it, Inspector Thatcher (cough, cough), now
who was snivelling and why?"
 Thatcher knew that she was finished. She could not answer the man.
 "Oh, please don't fire me!" she begged.
 Forbes was still at a loss to understand Thatcher.
 "Woman, are you mad?"
 "Fire Fraser," she continued, "it's his kid."
 "Am I to understand that there is a goat in this consulate?"
 "I believe Thatcher is referring to a child," Robert corrected him.
 "Then seek this infant out!" Forbes ordered.
 Robert asked Fraser to accompany him which Fraser did. Fraser took Anna
from the supplies' room and presented her to the stern Forbes. Forbes
looked down on the smiling elf.
 "Who-are-you?"
 Anna simply smiled at Forbes in a naive way that made her father tremble.
 "My name is Anna Fraser and I have not been convicted of a crime," she
answered.
 Fraser felt like committing seppukku right there and then.
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