The key was to Room 224 of a hotel near the airport.

Standing in the small rest room near the air traffic radar room, Keith Bakersfeld realized that he had been looking at the key for several minutes. Or was it only a few seconds? Recently he seemed to have lost all sense of time. Natalie had found him more than once just standing still and looking at nothing. He supposed that his brain was like a worn-out motor that was no longer working properly.

The human brain could do wonderful things. It could produce great works of art and science. It could also keep alive the pain of memories that a man would prefer to forget. Keith had memories that he could never forget. Only his death, which he had decided would take place tonight, would end his suffering.

He must go back to the radar room now and finish his duty. That seemed to be the right thing to do. Then he would go to the hotel and swallow a large amount of Nembutal. Enough to make him go to sleep and never wake up again.

He looked at the key. Room 224. The number reminded him of what had happened on June 24th a year and a half ago. It was the beginning of his pain, and the reason he would die tonight.

June 24th had been a beautiful summer's day, with a clear blue sky and hardly a cloud in sight. Keith had felt happy and light- hearted as he drove to work. He was not working at Lincoln International then, but at the Washington Air Traffic Control Centre in Leesburg.

Even inside the radar room, which had no windows, he felt the beauty of the summer's day.

The Leesburg Centre was not near an airport, but it was one of the busiest air traffic control centres in the country. Helped by a man called Perry Yount, Keith controlled traffic in the Pittsburgh-Baltimore area. There was also another young controller, George Wallace, who was being trained by Keith.

He went into the control room and looked at the screen. It was quite busy. Perry Yount had some additional work to do today, and left Keith to work alone with George Wallace. George would finish his training and become a full controller in only one week from now. Keith allowed him to give directions to two planes which were coming too close to one another, and saw that he was making the correct decisions. Keith was a successful teacher, and he was proud of Wallace's progress.