Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński is secretly abducted from the Primate’s Palace and sent into solitary confinement at Stoczek Warmiński, accompanied by Father Stanisław, recently freed from Rawicz, and Sister Leonia, coerced from Grudziądz, forming an unlikely retinue in his enforced exile. As state spies and the camp commandant conspire to break the Primate’s resolve, Father Stanisław risks everything to smuggle word of Wyszyński’s whereabouts to the outside, hoping to foil the regime’s darkest “third variant.”

On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.