Jane is on her knees beside her bed, singing praises to the Lord, weeping tears of joy and disbelief. She was having her bath around 4 pm preparatory to her six o’clock lecture when she accidentally discovered that she is a virgin again. She could not believe herself and checked and re-checked to confirm that, indeed, her hymen was back in place as if she never had intercourse with any man. Yet she too gave birth to a daughter for Shekau although the baby came out a stillbirth. So for her to be a virgin again was too much for her simple mind to grasp at once. She fell on her knees and began to praise the Lord, not minding the time. At a point, she could not even kneel again and is rolling on the floor, speaking in tongues.

“I’m a virgin again! I can’t believe it. I’m a virgin again, praise the Lord. Shekararababab…”

***

At Charles de Gaul Airport, Ted and Tracy have just cleared customs. Both have only a hand luggage each and head out to the Arrival section of the airport. They walk separately as if they have never met before. Both wear dark shades that are not really shades but special glasses that enable them see far and wide without anyone noticing their roving eyes. Immediately they pick up the reception party, two French men in grey suits with hats and dark shades. As soon as Tracy appears, the two men who hide amidst the crowd of people waiting to receive their relations from abroad involuntarily focus on her and then look away. Ted signals to Tracy with a slight nod of the head. According to plan, the two of them head for the toilets, Ted to the male toilet and Tracy to the female. The two watchers sit on nearby chairs, bring out newspapers and pretend to read, partially covering their faces. Five minutes later, a greying white man emerges from the male toilet and goes to sit beside the watchers. They pay him no attention, focusing totally on the female toilet. Ten minutes afterwards, a greying old lady in her late fifties emerges from the female toilet and joins the waiting old man beside the watchers. Both head out of the door and go towards the taxis. The watchers did not even notice them. The old couple enters a taxi and it drives away.

Around five, Jane manages to pull herself together. She gets up from the floor and begins to dress for the class. For the past two years, she has been studying Creative Writing at the American University of Paris and hopes to be a writer one day. She is particularly fascinated by the film industry and her project, the one she assigned to herself upon gaining admission into the university, is going to bridge the novel genre and the traditional film script. Her working title is: “The Chibok Fiasco.” Thanks to the International Red Cross, she is well catered for. Apart from paying her tuition, she is installed in a self-contained apartment in a block of flats not far from the university campus. She is also given a generous allowance by the Red Cross that enables her live in relative comfort comparative to her colleagues. Like Mary and her other colleagues, she is not aware of the Council of Galdopho and the marvellous role it has been playing in their lives since their miraculous escape from Sambisa some years ago. She only knows that the Red Cross is providing all the funds needed to sustain her in the university, and is immensely grateful to the organisation.

About a week ago, she was told that a woman from the Red Cross would be coming to see her. She hopes it would be their “mother”, the Red Cross woman who has taken special interest in them since they escaped from Sambisa. She is about to wear a jacket over her camisole when someone knocks. Thinking it is the woman from the Red Cross, she throws caution to the wind and flings the door open. She is confronted by two men, holding pistols in their hands.

“Bonjour, Madmoiselle Jane. Du calme, it e plais!” says one of the men as they crowd her back into her room and lock the door behind them. Jane is so shocked by the appearance of the men that she raises her hand docilely as she steps back.

“I don’t have much money!” she whispers in terror.

“We don’t want money, Jane,” says the other man, pulling out the chair behind her writing desk. “Sit. Assiez vous!”

Jane sinks into the chair in robotic obedience. One of the men begins to ransack her room with efficient rapidity, while the other covers her with his gun. In minutes, all her books have been thrown down with some shredded. Her drawers and cupboards were searched and her clothes shredded and flung every which way. Her mattress is overturned and ripped down the middle to see if anything is hidden in it.

“Rien!” says the searcher, throwing up his hands in frustration.

“What are you looking for, Sir?”

“The list you stole from Shekau when you escaped from Sambisa,” says the man covering her with his gun. “Where are you hiding the papers?”

“I didn’t steal any list, Sir. In fact, I’ve never heard of any list.”

“Liar!” shouts the man angrily, slapping Jane with his left hand. Jane cries out, not so much in pain but in surprise at the suddenness of the slap.

“Shhh! Where is the list, Jane? It is certainly not here.”

“I swear by the name of God that I don’t have any list!”

“Search her body!”

The other man gives Jane a quick body search and shakes his head.

“Rien!”

“Okay, come with us. Make any noise and we kill you, clear?”

Jane shakes her head, holding her lips. One of the men goes to the door, opens it and looks into the corridor. No one is in sight. He signals the other man to bring Jane. They sandwich her in between them, the man at the back covering his pistol with the evening edition of Le Figaro. They exit the building in a single file and enter a sedan which takes off at once going towards the Eiffel Tower. At that moment, the taxi bringing the couple came down the University Road. The couple observes the scene in front of them and knows that the black lady they have come to interview is being forced into the sedan.

“Follow that car at a discreet distance,” the old man instructs the driver.

The cabbie raises an eyebrow in enquiry. The old man brings out a hundred dollar bill and throws it in the passenger seat. The eyes of the cabbie light up at once.

“Mais oui, Monsieur,” he says scooping up the bill and putting it in his breast pocket. He then begins to follow the sedan at a discreet distance.

The sedan stops in front of the post office, and the two men hustle Jane inside the building. They descend the stairs and go to the bank of deposit boxes, stopping in front of number 28. Just then, the old couple also descend the stairs and go to a deposit box behind number 28.

“Open it, bitch!” says one of the men holding Jane captive.

Jane is shocked that the men know about her secret box. She realises that they must have been following her for a while. She types the combination of the computerised lock and it swings open. The only thing in the box is a large brown envelope. One of the men takes it out and empties the content on to the bottom of the box. Jane’s international passport and about a thousand dollars spill out. No paper or list. In disappointment, the men slam the box shut. At that moment, the greying old man throws a rubber snake over the bank of boxes and it lands on the shoulder of the man pressing the muzzle of the gun to Jane’s spine. He screams in panic and before all of them could recover, the old man and woman came out in a flash and with a few Karate chops and kicks, disable the two criminals, taking away their guns. They give each a well-placed chop behind the neck and both go down like a sack of potatoes, out cold. Jane is immobile with shock at the sudden turn of events.

“Don’t panic, Jane,” says Ted. “We’re from the Red Cross.”

“Thank God!” sighs Jane in relief.

Swiftly Ted and Tracy lay the unconscious men on a nearby bench. While Ted frisks the immobile duo, Tracy hurries Jane into the female toilet and applies some garish makeup to her face. Then she gives her a wig to cover her head, thus altering her appearance from a well-bred and highly educated black lady to a shameless prostitute, looking for a client. The three of them go out of the post office together, enter the waiting taxi and it goes towards the Eiffel Tower at a sedate speed. The driver of the two criminals does not even spare them a glance. He waits for his colleagues to come out of the post office with the confidence of a winner. Meanwhile, his two colleagues are still out cold on the bench in the deposit box section.

Three hours later, Ted and Tracy are in their hotel room, listening to the recorded interview with Jane and watching the screen to detect any lies. They brought the mini-version of the lie-detector that looks like an old tape recorder to enable them listen to the conversation and cross-check with their respondent in case there is an anomaly. But there was none. The device indicates that Jane does not have the Chibok papers and has never even heard of it. When it is over, Tracy puts the device in her small luggage and zips up.

“She spoke the truth, Ted”

“Sure, Captain. Unless she is such a competent liar she can beat even the lie-detector,” he says as he rises to his feet. “Another blank. Let’s get going now if we don’t want to miss our flight.”

“Yeah. Gimme a minute.”

Tracy is still in her disguise as an old greying lady but Ted has reverted to his real self. Tracy goes to the bathroom and emerges some minutes later in her passport personality as Tracy Winters. They grab their handy luggage and go out of the door. Two hours later, they are on their way back to America, their mission fully accomplished. On the plane, a part of Jane’s responses plays itself all over again in the mind of Tracy, as clear as if she is sitting in front of the American:

“Religion is supposed to set man free from all mental and spiritual bondages. Any religion that preaches that God orders its followers to kill, maim, rape and enslave fellow human beings before they can enter eternal bliss is a prison yard of the soul. My only ambition in life is to be a writer, to write such great books as Things Fall Apart, The Lion and the Jewel and Purple Hibiscus. Religion is supposed to help nurture and boost my budding talent. But what do I get? I was kidnapped, forced into sex slavery and degraded to the level of a beast of burden by people who claim to love me and want to show me the right way to God. Is it a crime to be a girl in this world? Why is it so difficult for people to love but leave me alone to find my own way to God? The Allah preached by Boko Haram is certainly not the same Allah that my father’s friend, Mallam Isa worships. No, they cannot be the same…”