Jack looked up quizzically from the pages. “What do you mean the sequence of Eve?”

“It is a sequence that had been determined by a supercomputer running for weeks on end to determine the matrilineal most recent common ancestor, or MRCA,” Sana explained. “In other words, it’s the sequence of the first female ancestor, taking into account every human permutation of the normal sixteen thousand and something base pairs of the human mitochondrial DNA sequence.”

“The statistics of something like that happening would be off the charts,” Jack said.

“Exactly. That’s why this is impossible.”

“What are you two mumbling about?” Shawn asked, coming up behind the others.

Sana gave Shawn the same explanation she’d given Jack. Shawn was equally dismissive.

“Something must have gone wrong with the system,” he suggested.

“I don’t think so,” Sana said. “I’ve done hundreds if not thousands of these MT sequences. Nothing has ever gone wrong before. Why should something go wrong now?”

“Do you have any more of your sample from the PCR?” Jack asked.

“I do,” Sana replied.

“Why don’t you just run another sequencing and analysis?”

“Good idea,” Sana agreed.

“Wait a second,” Shawn said, holding up a hand. “Let me ask you two guys something, and then you tell me I’m crazy and to shut the hell up. Okay?”

“Okay,” both Sana and Jack said, nearly simultaneously.

“Okay,” Shawn said. “Here’s the only way that this statistically impossible situation could have occurred. . . .” Shawn hesitated, looking back and forth from Sana to Jack.

“All right, already. Tell us!” Sana protested. Her pulse was still racing.

“We’re all ears,” Jack agreed. “Shoot!”

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Shawn teased, to good effect.

“I’m going back into the lab to run another sample,” Sana said, pushing away from the counter where she’d been leaning.

“Wait!” Shawn said, catching her arm. “I’ll tell you, promise!”

“I’ll give you five seconds to start or I’m going into the lab,” Sana said. She’d had enough. She wasn’t going to play Shawn’s game any longer. She was too excited.

“For a second forget the Palestinian woman. We have two identical samples: matrilineal Eve and the woman from the ossuary. Other than having the same mitochondrial DNA, what makes them similar?”

Sana glanced at Jack, who returned her stare. “They weren’t contemporaries, if that’s what you are implying,” Sana said. “Matrilineal Eve is projected back many hundreds of thousands of years.”

“No, no,” Shawn said. “Their similarity is not that. Let me put it another way. My belief, thanks to Saturninus’s letter, is that the bones in the ossuary are those of Mary, the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Let’s assume for a moment they are, which would make them extraordinarily holy objects to many, many people. Do you follow me so far?”

“Of course,” Sana said impatiently.