Sitting at their specialized positions, and monitoring the Numbers displayed on the consoles, a few of the flight controllers had begun to sense, just barely, that something was going seriously wrong.

We delivered the cars and said our farewells before going to the airport for the initial flight to Africa and the first leg of our new life.

Sure, most of the time you'll get off the plane a few minutes later than the folks up near the pilot, but unless you've got a tight connecting flight, it's not going to make much difference.