The Judas Iscariot Syndrome

Summer, 1977. At a refugee camp at Chikumbi in rural Lusaka, Zambia, bombs come raining down from the skies, courtesy of the Rhodesian Air Force. Other targets linked to the fight for the liberation of Rhodesia also suffer the same fate that morning. The war has been going on for years, with multiple casualties spreading out all over the countries bordering Southern Rhodesia, and there appears to be no end in sight.

Vince Kunda, an operative with the Zambia Security Intelligence Service, cuts short his assignment with the Bank of Zambia and goes back to the office to help deal with the resultant crisis, as the security situation in the country rapidly deteriorates. There is an escalation of violence on all battle fronts, from the jungles of Mozambique to the farmland rural Rhodesia, just as there are intensified efforts to come up with a diplomatic solution to the conflict in the capital cities of the United States of America, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

A chance encounter with an agent of the South West Africa anti insurgency unit Koevoet leads Vince to discover the infiltration of Zambia’s security service at the highest level by agents of the South African Bureau of State Security. A covert cell is suspected to be operating within the corridors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Vince teams up with his colleague Alufonso ‘The Cat’ Kunda, and starts chasing ghosts that may well end up being linked to the British secret intelligence service, the MI6. His meeting with Barbara Chilufya, the Ministry’s acting Chief of Protocol, marks the start of a chain of events that are intended to disrupt the operations of the spy network. But then, Barbara is one of the suspects, as is the Chief of Protocol, Selwyn Lundonde, the man who grabbed Vince’ wife and carted her off to New York. As events progress, the chase for ghosts become just that little bit too personal, much more than Vince had anticipated.