The story is set in 1939. A military officer is stripped of his rank for his apparent collaboration with a counter-espionage agent while on a mission in Paris. Then he is enlisted in his own country's counterespionage unit, due to his knowledge of languages. He is assigned to Gdansk where he is trying to uncover mysterious "Wotan" in the German Secret Service. He eventually tracks down and kills the agent, but by doing so wipes out the possibility to clearing himself of the charges. Just as the death sentence is to be carried out on him the war breaks out and he escapes out of the bombed prison to join partisans.