In the room next to the bone-processing lab, a continuous bank of computers lined all four walls. It was here where scientists took the DNA profiles generated from the original bone fragments and attempted to match them to profiles stored in the Combined DNA Index System databank known as CODIS. But this was not the national databank the FBI utilized to match DNA profiles gathered from crime scenes to previously convicted criminals. The databank searched here was a stand-alone archive of DNA profiles provided by the families of 9/11 victims who were never identified after the towers fell.

Greg Norton had worked at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for three years. Most of those years were spent in the computer lab. Each morning he was met with a stack of DNA profiles recently sequenced from bone fragments that had been collected from the rubble of the Twin Towers. He entered each sequence into the CODIS databank and searched for matches. In three years of employment he had never made a single match. But this morning, just as he sat down with his second cup of coffee and pecked away at the keyboard, a green indicator light blinked at the bottom of the screen.

Green?

A red light meant no matches had been found on sequences entered, and Greg had become so accustomed to misses that the red light was all he ever expected. He’d never seen a green indicator light during his tenure at the OCME. He clicked on the icon and two DNA profiles popped up onto the monitor—white numbers against a black background. They were identical.

“Hey, boss?” he said in a careful tone, keeping his eye on the set of twenty-three numbers in front of him to make sure they didn’t change.

“What’s up?” Dr. Trudeau asked as he worked his fingers over a keyboard on the other side of the room.

As the head of Forensic Biology, Arthur Trudeau was in charge of identifying the remains of mass casualties from across the state of New York. For nearly twenty years it had been his mission to identify every specimen collected from those killed in the World Trade Center attack.

“We got a hit.”

Trudeau’s fingers stopped tapping the keyboard and he slowly looked over to Greg Norton’s station. “Say that again.”

The tech nodded and smiled as he continued to stare at the numbers on his screen. “We got a hit. We got a frickin’ hit!”

Dr. Trudeau stood from his desk and walked across the lab. “Patient?”

“One one four five zero.”

Trudeau walked to a standing computer station, pulled the keyboard toward him, and typed the numbers.

“Who is it?” Greg asked.

Other technicians had heard the news of a confirmed identification and gathered around. Trudeau stared at the monitor and the small hourglass that spun as the computer searched. Finally, a named appeared on the screen.

“Victoria Ford,” he said.

“Next of kin?” Greg asked.