In Warsaw’s post-1989 turmoil, counterintelligence analyst Marek Dąbrowski is working under a fragile Polish political analyst cover when a leaked document and a political assassination point to a disinformation unit inside a rival intelligence agency, not an outside enemy. In The Lost Protocol, he has to verify paper trails, triangulate reports, and keep moving through a city where both old and new factions monitor information and official channels deny the problem even exists.

With his access to sensitive internal reports shrinking, Marek is pushed from archive work into the field to trace false stories through press sheets, dead drops, and broadcast routing marks that are already shaping blame in local media. He must uncover who is feeding the lies before an imminent civil protest next week erupts into violence and his friend Jurek Brzozowski is executed on false accusations. A mole hunt inside his own network makes every contact suspect, even the ones who seem to be helping.

Marek’s fatal flaw is simple and dangerous: he overcommits to sources, and every person he trusts narrows his judgment just enough for the operation to bend around them. The journalist, the handler, and the former-spy cutout each offer a piece of the truth, but each one also carries a pressure point the enemy can exploit. As Marek pushes toward the source, his cover identity becomes harder to defend, and every choice he makes risks turning loyalty into the very mechanism that exposes him.