An ancient manuscript is bequeathed to an American museum and it doesn't take the ECHO team long to discover it contains clues critical to their mission. Joe Hawke decides he needs to secure it for the team, but when it's snatched from right under his nose in a daring raid, it triggers an explosive chain of events leading to kidnapping, murder and mayhem. Still reeling from the destruction of their headquarters, Hawke and the rest of the ECHO team must retrieve the stolen manuscript and translate its mysterious clues to solve one of the oldest riddles of all time and secure an ancient weapon of awesome and unpredictable power. With their boss, Sir Richard Eden, still in a coma, the team are forced to rely on the guidance and back-up of the enigmatic Magnus Lund if they are to secure the manuscript and complete their mission, but no one knows if he can be trusted.As the mission unfolds they face challenges like never before: Lea Donovan learns a difficult truth about her family; the Oracle is deepening his infiltration of the upper echelons of the US Government; and the Zodiacs - a notorious snatch squad of assassins employed by a secretive department deep within the Chinese Ministry of State Security - are hunting a member of the ECHO team and have devised the cruellest of traps to snare her.From Boston Harbor to a private Mediterranean island, from the canals and backstreets of Amsterdam to the Welsh mountains, The Sword of Fire sees the ECHO team fighting as never before as they try to deny their enemy the prize it so desperately craves.