Roger Lee Fairley died when his smal plane went down in Alabama eight months back. O.K., that's what Mrs. Veckhoff said. I jotted the name and date. February 13.

The oldest item described the 1959 highway accident that kiled Anthony Alen Birkby.

The other names meant nothing. I added them to my list, along with their dates of death, laid the clippings aside, and turned to the diary.

The first entry was made on June 17, 1935, the last in November 2000. Flipping through the pages, I could see that the handwriting changed several times, suggesting multiple authors. The final three decades were chronicled in a taut, cramped script almost too smal to read.

Martin Patrick Veckhoff was tightly wrapped, indeed, I thought, returning to the first page. For the next two hours I plowed through faded script, now and then glancing at my watch, distracted by thoughts of Lucy Crowe.

The journal contained not a single proper name. Codes or nicknames were used throughout. Omega. Ilus. Khaffre. Chac. Itzmana.

I recognized an Egyptian pharaoh here, a Greek letter there. Some handles sounded vaguely familiar, others not at al.

There were financial accounts: money in, money out. Repairs. Purchases. Awards. Demerits. There were descriptions of events. A dinner. A business meeting. A literary discussion.

Beginning in the forties another type of entry began to appear. Lists of code names, folowed by sets of strange symbols. I flipped through several. The same players reappeared year after year, then disappeared, never to be seen again. When one went out, a new one came in.

I counted. There were never more than eighteen names on any of these rosters.

When I finaly leaned back, my tea was cold, and my neck felt as though it had been hung from a line and alowed to dry in the wind. Birdie was asleep on the love seat.

'Al right. Let's go at it the other way round.'

The cat stretched but didn't open an eye.

Using the dates I'd taken from Mrs. Veckhoff's clippings, I fast forwarded through the journal. A list of code names was entered four days after Birkby's car crash. Sinuhe appeared for the first time, but Omega was missing. I scanned subsequent lists. Omega was never mentioned again.

Had Anthony Birkby been Omega?

Using this hypothesis, I flashed ahead to 1986.

Within days of Kendal Rolins's death, a list appeared. Mani replaced Piankhy.

Heart beating slightly faster, I continued with the clipping dates.

John Morgan died in 1972. Three days later, a list. Arrigatore checked in. Itzmana vanished.

Wiliam Glenn Sherman died in 1979. Five days later Veckhoff recorded a list. Ometeotl debuted. Rho was history.

Every death notice clipped by Mrs. Veckhoff was folowed within days by a code name list. In each instance, a regular disappeared, and a newcomer joined the roster.

Matching clippings with journal entries, I correlated code names with real names for everyone dead since 1959.

A. A. Birkby: Omega; John Morgan: Itzmana; Wiliam Glenn Sherman: Rho; Kendal Rolins: Piankhy.