Concurrent event: Six months after my redundancy in 1998 I found equivalent employment as an international field service technician for the UK office of a German electronics systems manufacturer, Eltromat GmbH. Eltromat UK’s office was on the same industrial estate as my Father’s company, and serving the same customer base. That’s how I came to be speaking with someone still working for my old employer when Mike Heaford, my accountant uncle, approached and asked to speak to me.
He asked if I could explain a 'gratuity payment' they’d received, around $1-million. He asked if I knew the company that was making this exgratis payment. I think he said Cepac, Britain’s largest cardboard packaging company, established in May 1997 and wholly owned the HSA Group in whose Yemen headquarters I’d met Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in September 1997.*.
I said I hadn’t heard of them, but assumed my name had been referenced for my uncle to ask me, our first conversation since he’d made me redundant in April 1998. As shown in this graph of HMRC records, fluctuations in my former employer's bank balances correspond to a $1-milion payment being received in early 2000.
Concurrent event: Three members of the Hamburg Cell travelled to Afghanistan in November and December 1999. In early 2000 lead Hamburg Cell member Mohammed Atta was seen partying in the Philippines. My theory is Atta was celebrating the approval of his 9/11 attack plan and the $1-million payment from Cepac to my former employer was an aknowledgement of my contribution to the plan during my business trip to Yemen in September.