Shock Wave

Book 3: Task Force Epsilon Thriller

by Al Pessin

Genres: Conspiracy Thrillers; Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers

Synopsis

A MISSION TO AVERT WAR

Vital seaports in Jordan and Israel erupt in fire and destruction. It’s the first strike from a terrorist organization determined to increase hostilities throughout the Middle East.  There’s only one way to combat the threat. It’s time for Operation Shock Wave . . .

Saddiq Mohammed al-Assali is America’s most wanted terrorist. His cells in Israeli and the Palestinian territories are ready and eager to usher in a maelstrom of violence between the two nations. Each will blame the other. Iran will be implicated. And the United States will be drawn into yet another Middle Eastern war.
 
To stop al-Assali, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Bridget Davenport assigns Lieutenant Faraz Abdallah to infiltrate the terrorist’s cabal. But as Faraz uncovers and sabotages al-Assali’s plans one by one, Bridget herself becomes the target—and Faraz must take decisive action in a deadly game of international deceit . . .
 
“An authentic, heart-stopping thriller. Don't miss this one!”
—Andrews and Wilson, authors of the Tier One thriller series

“Relentless tension, a fast-paced story . . . military drama at its finest!”
—Carole Stivers, author of The Mother Code

“Al Pessin is the perfect blend of Daniel Silva and Lee Child.”
—Dave Zeltserman, award-winning author of the Julius Katz stories

Release date: January 25, 2022

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

The lone passenger felt every whitecap as the small boat crept toward the desert shore. He thought he might be sick, but he was determined not to show any weakness.

He looked out the porthole. The moonless night revealed nothing.

The man was sweating in the stagnant, hot air of the small forward cabin. The old, rusting bench with thin, plastic-covered cushions provided none of the creature comforts to which his unique capabilities had entitled him these many years.

The cabin brought to mind the tiny Beirut apartment where he’d grown up, where he’d learned of his father’s murder, where his mother had died for lack of medical care. He had worked hard to forget that apartment through the decades of plush furnishings and air conditioning. He shook off the memory.

A swell hit the boat and nearly knocked him from his seat. He put a hand on the bench to steady himself and let another wave of nausea pass.

How had he come to this—on this scow, hat in hand, virtually on his knees begging for the seeds to regrow his operation? Begging for his life.

Not long ago, this all would have been done with a phone call and an electronic transfer. Now, calls were more dangerous than ever. Moving money was, too. Damn them.

His anger and shame fueled a new determination to succeed, to impress his masters, to get back to the air conditioning.

If they let him live.

A member of the crew opened the cabin door. “Two minutes, sayyid.” He spoke in Arabic and retreated without waiting for an answer.

Still clinging to the bench, Saddiq Mohammed Assali thanked God that he had survived the voyage. “Allah hu akbar,” he whispered. God is great. But his tone was more sarcastic than reverent. Surviving this far was a victory, but perhaps a fleeting one.

Assali stood, something a taller man would not have been able to do in the low-ceilinged cabin. His ample belly made it hard to balance in the rolling sea and strained the fabric of his sweat-stained traditional Arab qamis, an untucked long-sleeved white shirt that reached not quite to his knees and was buttoned all the way to his neck.

He wiped his three-day stubble. He ran a hand through his combover. It came out greasy. Disgraceful. But such was life on the run. He had only his small travel case, half a bottle of water and an empty plastic bag that once held German pretzels. He wished he hadn’t eaten them.

Assali put on the suit jacket he’d bought not long ago at the priciest men’s tailor shop in Amman. He picked up the carry-on, put the water bottle in a side pocket and stepped to the cabin door, crushing discarded candy wrappers and cigarette butts as he went. For the first time he could remember, he had smoked his last. Perhaps, if this is the end, they’ll at least give him one before the execution.

He mounted two of the three steps to the deck. His face caught the breeze, which blew away some of the staleness and refreshed him.

They called this the Red Sea, but all he could see was black. The small cabin cruiser was painted black. The three-man crew wore black. And they had turned off the lights. Looking toward the rear of the boat, he could hardly see anything.

They had engaged the electric motor and so were running almost silently. They were invisible and inaudible. At least that was the theory. Who knew what technology the enemy might have?

Assali mounted the final step onto the deck and turned to look around. His fist closed on a rail and he peered into the darkness. In the distance to his left, there was a glow in the sky—the lights of Eilat and Aqaba, he reasoned. Otherwise, there was darkness in all directions. Staring ahead and not blinking, he forced his pupils to dilate. The shoreline appeared, dark gray against the blackness, maybe a kilometer away.

“How can you be sure this is the place?” he asked.

“From the satellite, sayyid,” the captain assured him. The man’s face was barely visible in the dimmed lights of the instrument panel.

Assali looked toward the shore again and shrugged. He could only hope these men knew what they were doing.

The next wave tossed the boat and splashed over the rail.

Assali turned away but tasted the salt as water hit the deck. He had two hands on the rail now and was more concerned about going overboard than about vomiting. This had to be the longest kilometer in the world.

Finally cresting the last wave, the boat surfed down to the shore and ran aground.

This time, Assali’s “Allah hu akbar” was sarcasm-free.

“Here, sayyid,” the captain said. He lowered a small ladder over the stern.

“Into the water?” Assali asked. This would be the final indignity. Final for now, anyway.

“It is only half a meter,” the captain said, not bothering to conceal a derisive smile.

Assali frowned and moved toward the back of the boat.

The sky brightened, as if from a distant bolt of lightning. All eyes turned north, toward the glow of the cities, in time to see a second flash. Then the sound reached them—a low rumble, barely audible. They felt it as much as heard it. The boat bobbed in the surf.

Assali snorted at the irony that he was close enough to feel the impact of what he’d done. That would be a first. And also a last, he hoped. He preferred to run his operations from a safer distance.

“It is done, then,” the captain said.

“Yes. So it would seem.”

“Allah hu akbar.”

Assali nodded but did not repeat the blessing. His look said, “Give Allah credit if you want. This was my doing.”

He took a deep breath and shook off the last of the claustrophobia and nausea. He might yet survive this night.

Assali took hold of the ladder’s handles and hefted himself over the rail. He let out a curse, then eased himself down into the warm water. His designer leather loafers hit the sand. His gaberdine dress pants were wet past the knees. The hem of his qamis touched the water, but, praise Allah, his suit coat was spared. He held his bag high on his shoulder.

As he made awkward steps toward dry land, the headlights of three vehicles blinked from behind the mangroves at the edge of the beach.

Assali did not turn to wave or thank the crew. He climbed the beach incline and walked toward the cars with as much dignity as he could muster, his pants dripping, his shoes and socks caked with sand, his heart pounding.

He was sweating again, but not from the heat. A week ago, he would have been welcomed as an honored guest. Now, even after what he had just done, he wasn’t sure whether he would make it off the beach alive.

“What the hell do you mean three days ago?”

President Andrew Martelli stood over his guests, rather than sitting in his usual chair between the Oval Office’s sofas. The renewed threat of terrorist attacks and the looming election campaign had combined to crack his practiced academic-turned-politician demeanor.

“He disappeared? Is that what you’re telling me? That he’s a goddamned magician, or a ghost maybe?”

Martelli’s target worked hard to maintain his composure under the withering assault of a presidential dressing-down. The man picked a spot on the carpet across the room, stared at it and didn’t say anything. In his peripheral vision, he could see that the young aide sitting next to him was doing the same.

Lieutenant General Jim Hadley had not experienced such an outburst in decades. If anyone had tried, they’d have gotten an earful. But this was the President of the United States. So even the three-star head of the Defense Intelligence Agency had to take it. And the tirade was not entirely unreasonable. It was Hadley’s news that had set the president off. He had told Martelli that one of his agents reported seeing the president’s most-wanted terrorist at a fishing village in Yemen, but that was three days ago.

The president’s chief of staff, Greg Capman, spoke up from the other sofa.

“And you’re sure it was Assali?”

“Liz?” Hadley said, handing the question to Liz Michaels, thinking it might be harder for the president to yell at her curly hair and flared skirt pulled down to cover her knees. Liz was the acting head of Task Force Epsilon because Hadley had sent her boss to Iraq, where she’d hitched a ride on an operation in Syria and gotten herself shot.

“Ninety percent, sir,” she said, her voice tentative.

“And now?” Capman pressed. “Any idea at all where he might be?”

“No, sir.”

Hadley could see Liz’s fingertips turning white under short, keyboard-ready nails as she gripped her notebook hard.

“Mr. President, if I may?” Defense Secretary Marty Jacobs was the senior person in the room after the president. He sat in a beige, upholstered Queen Ann armchair, facing Martelli the long way across the coffee table. “We believe this man, Assali, was responsible for the attacks in Eilat and Aqaba last night.”

Martelli turned toward his old friend. The left sleeve of Jacobs’s jacket was pinned to the shoulder. He had lost most of his left arm to a Taliban mortar during a visit to Afghanistan a year earlier. The president looked like he was working hard to modulate his response.

“Marty, I don’t need the world’s biggest military and intel apparatus to know that.”

Jacobs absorbed the low-key but pointed blow without responding.

“He’s the only one left after our sweep, isn’t he?” the president asked.

“The only one we know of,” Liz said, then seemed to realize she shouldn’t have spoken unless spoken to. She looked back at the floor.

Hadley covered for her. “The only one with that sort of capability, sir. Although it’s worth noting that the bombs were relatively small—moderate damage to one tourist hotel in each city, total of five killed, a couple of dozen injured. Could have been much worse and likely would have been if we hadn’t done what we did to cripple his operation.”

“He’s giving us the finger, isn’t he?”

“Sir?”

“He’s telling us he can still hurt us even after we arrested or killed most of his pals last week. I also don’t need your experts to tell me these attacks are not random and they’re not Assali’s last hurrah. They’re a warning, a taunt.” The president moved left and made a circuit of the sofas. “After all we think we accomplished, that asshole has the ability to do something like this just a few days later.”

“That’s true, Mr. President,” Hadley said. “But we may not be his only audience.”

“What do you mean?”

“After what we did, Assali can’t be popular with his backers. He may need to show them he’s down but not out.”

“You mean the Gulfies?”

“Yes, sir. The money trail points that way but gets lost somewhere between Switzerland and cyberspace.”

“Not good enough, General. How many years have you been working this?”

“Too many, sir.”

“Damn right. Find the end of that money trail and you’ll find Assali. Or trace it the other way and tell me exactly who is funding him. Whichever way it works, shut them down. Without that, it’s whack-a-mole as usual. And if he’s restored his credibility, he’ll be looking for cash for something bigger. I will not have it on my watch, damn it! Not again. Find this guy, General. Use every resource. Push every asset. Break some knuckles if you have to.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Now, I need to talk to these guys in private, and you and Ms. Michaels have work to do.”

As the two DIA officials left, Defense Secretary Jacobs couldn’t help shaking his head. Even mentioning “breaking knuckles” was very not-Martelli. It was less than a week since they’d celebrated what they thought was a decisive blow against the terrorists. After two small bombings, the president’s reaction felt excessive.

“You were pretty tough on them,” Jacobs said.

“Maybe I haven’t been tough enough. We can’t give these terrorists enough space to strike back, especially not now.”

“Poll numbers are good, Mr. President,” Chief of Staff Capman said.

Martelli sighed and shook his head. “Why is it these things always happen in an election year?”

“Nothing like a good Middle Eastern war to boost your ratings,” Jacobs said.

“What the hell, Marty?”

“I was joking, Mr. President.”

“Not funny.”

“Sorry, sir. But I guess my point is that there’s a fine line between launching a covert offensive against terror groups and their financiers versus sending the marines.”

“It’s not a fine line, it’s a broad bold line. If we have to send the marines, we’ll send them, but we have lots of intermediate options, including Epsilon.”

“And it’s early,” Capman said. “You don’t have to worry about the primaries, and the general is nearly a year away. The crackdown was a big boost, and I don’t think Eilat and Aqaba will have much impact.”

“I’m not worried about Eilat and Aqaba,” Martelli said. “I’m worried about what comes next.”

The tap-tap of his dress shoes was amplified as it echoed off the polished floors and painted walls of the wide corridor. He lengthened his stride to keep up with the petite, energetic sergeant who was escorting him. She was rattling on with some sort of patter about the history of the building and what was where and how you could get a coffee less than a seven-minute walk from anywhere if you knew the shortcuts.

Lieutenant Faraz Abdallah was ignoring her. He was perspiring, though people passed him wearing sweaters against the supercharged air conditioning. His eyes darted from side to side, as if looking for threats. The brand-new dress uniform they’d given him chafed against his skin, and the weight of the jacket caused shooting pains along his injured shoulder.

He held his hat under his other arm, revealing the bandage in the small, shaved area on the side of his head, not very well covered by his fresh army haircut. He was clean-shaven for the first time in more than a year.

Faraz experienced a rush of panic. He should turn around and run, get the hell out of there. He imagined that everyone who nodded collegial greetings as they passed was IDing him as a terrorist, passing the word to arrest him, torture him, put him in a dark, fetid shed.

He blinked it away, wiped his face with his hand, and followed the sergeant into an elevator. She pushed the button for 2B, the second basement.

The elevator doors opened on a bland vestibule with gray walls and no decorations. The sign above the double steel doors in front of them read DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, COMMITTED TO EXCELLENCE. Two Pentagon Police officers sat at a small table.

The sergeant held out her ID and Faraz did the same. One of the officers nodded and entered a code on a keypad by the doors. They opened on a smaller vestibule, with two more steel doors on the other side. Faraz and the sergeant went in, and the doors clanged shut behind them. His escort looked up at a camera mounted at the top of the wall.

“Sergeant Collins with Lieutenant Abdallah.”

Faraz heard the whir of an electronic lock. A light turned from red to green, and Sergeant Collins pushed one of the doors open.

The sterile waiting room, with padded metal chairs, white walls and service logos on the walls, was small enough to be a holding cell. He’d spent too much time in those lately. This one at least had a smiling receptionist.

“Have a good day, sir.” Sergeant Collins went to the far end of the room, swiped her ID and disappeared through a door with a sign that read AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” the receptionist said in a mild Southern accent. She was retirement age, and makeup couldn’t camouflage the pallor that Faraz figured came from the best part of forty years working down in this hole. “Please have a seat. General Hadley will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Faraz chose a chair under the army logo and picked up an old magazine so he could look at something that might distract him from where he was.

He had been working for the DIA, in essence, for two years. But he’d never been here, never even close to here. Faraz ran a finger across his neck under the shirt collar and tie. He flipped a page of the magazine but had no interest in it.

All he wanted to do was get this meeting over with. He had met Hadley once before. Nice enough for a general, said he owed Faraz some medals. And that was before this last mission. Faraz would take the medals, the handshake, the pat on the back. Then, he’d ask Hadley to let him return to his old unit—the 101st Airborne—the one his cousin Johnny had been part of.

That’s the reason Faraz joined the army. To honor his cousin. In fact, Johnny was much more than a cousin. He was a friend. A mentor. When Faraz graduated from UCLA, years after Johnny was killed in action, he still felt the draw.

The 101st had been Faraz’s army home until he’d let himself get talked into this mess. And that’s where he wanted to return.

Not likely. After the two jobs he’d done for the DIA, they were not going to give him up without a fight. He would have to defy a three-star general. Faraz had faced down terrorists, survived an air strike, killed a man in hand-to-hand—done other things he preferred not to think about. So why were his knees bouncing now? He put his feet flat on the floor to regain control.

The receptionist took a call and turned toward Faraz. “Lieutenant?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The general has been delayed at the White House. He’ll be back as soon as he can.”

The White House. The general was meeting him right after meeting . . . who? The president? No. No. This was too much. He was not ready for this.

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Sorry?”

“I need to go. I’ll see the general another time.” Faraz put down the magazine, stood and walked toward the doors.

“Lieutenant, please.”

“Tell General Hadley I’ll see him another time.” Faraz grabbed the door handle, but it was locked. He pounded on it, then turned back to the receptionist. She pushed a button and the lock slid. Faraz pulled the door open and went into the holding area. He realized the outer door wouldn’t open until the inner one closed, so he pulled at it against the pneumatics. The sound of the inner door’s lock finally engaging was followed by the click of the outer door opening.

Faraz pushed it and walked past the policemen toward the elevator.

“Sir,” one of them called after him. “You can’t leave this area without an escort.”

“Then escort me.” Faraz stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the main floor.

The officer rushed to join him just before the doors closed.

The only civilian on the medevac flight from Germany to Washington eased herself off the gurney and pushed away the hand of the nurse who was helping her.

“I’m okay,” she lied.

Bridget Davenport was an army veteran and head of a covert task force. She was not letting one lousy jihadi bullet make her an invalid, not even a big high-powered bullet.

She grabbed a handhold along the curved steel wall and took a step forward. Okay, that worked. She took another step and got a sharp pain in her right side. Left side good, right side not so much. She stopped and stretched.

The steady vibration of the aircraft and the incessant roar of the engines weren’t making this any easier. And it was cold. The cavernous interior of the C-17 felt like the inside of a refrigerator—a big refrigerator that could hold more than four hundred normal refrigerators.

“Let me help you,” the nurse offered from behind.

“No,” Bridget insisted, holding out her left hand to block any attempt. She turned her head to look at the nurse in her flight suit and combat boots. Bridget’s expression softened. “I need to do this myself.”

“It’s too soon, ma’am.”

“Maybe. But I don’t have time to wait. If I can’t at least go pee on my own, how am I going to get back to work when we get to DC?”

“Honestly, ma’am, I think you need to temper your expectations on that. The surgery you had, an AK round through the side, that’s serious business.”

“Yeah, well, fuck all AKs. And fuck all jihadis, too.”

The nurse laughed. “Yes, ma’am. Fuck ’em all.”

“And fuck tempering expectations, too.”

“Well, good luck with that.”

Bridget smiled. She turned back toward the toilet cubicle and made her way, step by agonizing step, with the nurse shadowing her. Halfway there, Bridget stopped for rest and turned to survey the scene—long rows of gurneys bolted to the floor, each with a patient under white sheets and heavy blankets, with IV bags and medical monitors hanging. Doctors, nurses and technicians moved from bed to bed, checking, chatting, administering a med, holding a hand.

She resumed her slow, painful walk to the cubicle.

With the door finally closed and locked, Bridget leaned against the sink and winced. The pain was significant, even by her standards. The nurse was right. It was too soon, but she was not surrendering.

The bathroom mirror was unkind. They’d washed her hair at some point, but it was a tangled mess from more than a week of lying in bed. She had on no makeup, not that she ever wore much, but the scary thing was that she looked terrible. She was pale, kind of yellow in the weak bathroom light. Her eyes looked tired. She had lines on her face she’d never noticed before. A few months shy of her fortieth birthday, Bridget thought she looked eighty-five. She turned away and did what she had to do.

On the way back to her bed, she passed the nurse again. “I need my backpack and I need to get online,” she said.

“Ma’am, I can get your bag, but the Wi-Fi is for aircrew and medical staff only.”

Bridget sat on the edge of her gurney and put on the least nasty tone she could muster. The pain made it difficult. “When you bring me my bag, I will give you my ID, which you can show to the captain or whoever needs to see it to get me on the motherfu—” Bridget took a breath. “On the internet. Okay?”

“Sure, ma’am.” The nurse sounded skeptical but, as often happens, appeared willing to let someone higher up do the arguing.

Ten minutes later, Bridget had a username and password scribbled on a yellow sticky note. She smiled. It was affirmation that she still had some clout, even bandaged and in pain at thirty thousand feet. She needed that.

Bridget logged in and opened an email from her boss, General Hadley. “I hear you’re flying back today. Safe travels. Heal up. Rest up. Hooah!”

What the hell does that mean? Where’s the “We need you back in here” line? And hooah, the army word for everything gung ho? In this case meaning . . . what? “You go, girl,” maybe. She didn’t remember Hadley patronizing her before.

Bridget opened a secure chat and pinged her deputy, Liz Michaels.

“Hi! Great to hear from you,” Liz responded. “ How are you?”

“I’m fine. How’s it going?”

“Wait, you’re supposed to be in flight now.”

“I am.”

“Cool.”

“So, how’s it going?”

“We’re good.” Not exactly the level of detail Bridget wanted.

“How was the White House meeting?”

“Not fun.”

Bridget snorted. She’d had her own tense moments there. “Anything new on Assali?”

“No, nada.”

“You think I could get something more than two-word answers?”

“I guess.”

Then Liz added, “That was a joke.”

“So, tell me what the F is going on.”

“Hadley said not to bother you with stuff. ”

It took Bridget a few seconds to decide how to respond. “On a Pentagon line, I cannot type what I want to type right now about a three-star general.”

“LOL. Don’t be too hard on him. He’s worried about you. We all are.”

“That’s sweet . . . I guess. But not necessary. TELL ME ABOUT ASSALI.”

“We don’t have much new on him. We had a few bursts of chatter that were maybe about him or maybe about an attack or maybe about nothing. Now, it’s gone quiet.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, exactly.” Then she added, “Sorry for the two-word answer. Haha.”

Without phone call intercepts, the intelligence community had no way of even guessing what Assali and his remaining cohort were up to. Bridget was pretty sure he’d be up to something. She had to get back into the building, see the data for herself, push the staff in the right directions.

“Hadley says you’re out two months, maybe three,” Liz wrote.

“Screw that. It’s what the docs say, but I’ll be in the office by the end of the week if I have to shoot my way out of the hospital.”

“That would be good news for me, but don’t overdo it. You need to rest.”

“Everybody’s a doctor, now. I’ll see you Friday, if not before.”

“All right. Good luck. Don’t shoot anyone.”

As Bridget closed her laptop, the nurse appeared with her pain meds. “You should get some rest, ma’am.”

Bridget glared at her. “The next person who tells me to get some rest is gonna get thrown off this airplane.”

The nurse folded her arms across her chest.

“Okay, sorry,” Bridget said. She took the meds.

“Listen, ma’am, you’re under a lot of stress, coming off being shot, hospital time, now back to your regular job stress, whatever that is. You can snap at me. It’s okay. But recognize it for what it is.”

“You saying I have PTSD?”

“No, ma’am, not Disorder. That would be above my pay grade, anyway. But every patient on this plane has Post-Traumatic Stress to handle, medical staff and aircrew, too. We all get through it in our own way at our own pace, with help if needed. But half the battle is recognizing it.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” Bridget touched the nurse’s arm. “I actually am tired.”

The nurse fluffed Bridget’s pillow. “We have about six hours to go. I’ll give you a heads-up when we’re getting close.”

Bridget nodded and slid along the gurney to lie down on her wound-free left side. The vibration of the plane soothed her, like one of those quarter-eating massage beds at motels in the mountains. That made her think about her boyfriend, Will, left behind in Baghdad, riding his desk job at forward Special Ops HQ. They’d had a helluva day—gone off-book, shot some jihadis, nearly gotten her killed. They’d also maybe repaired their relationship, just in time for yet another separation.

She stared at the exposed metal ceiling. Bridget knew from her army days that that’s the way these things go. She knew it would be true when she decided, against all experience, to date a Navy SEAL. At least they were in a good place for their next holding pattern. She should have chatted with him when she was online. Well, who even knew what the hell time it was in Baghdad? She’d send him an email when she got to DC.

Bridget shifted to a less painful position. The next thing she knew, the nurse was waking her for landing.

Assali looked particularly small in the super-king-sized bed in one of the prince’s many guest rooms. The morning sun snuck through at the edges of the blackout curtains, delivering soft light to wake him.

He felt much more like himself than he had at any time in the past week, since he’d left that lovely blonde in the hotel room in Amman, minutes ahead of the Jordanian security forces and, no doubt, their American masters. Damn them for interrupting. He’d had more plans for her.

Since then, he had lived in a series of dingy safe houses and desert tents, and then the shit-soaked village and that awful boat. Last night, after a silent ride with the prince’s security men, he’d taken his first shower and eaten his first decent meal in all that time. He regretted only that the prince served neither whiskey nor whores, but his regret was short-lived. He’d fallen asleep the minute his head hit the silk pillowcase.

Lying on his back, he admired the gold leaf geometric pattern on the twenty-foot ceiling. It was incongruous for a desert palace, but the walls were covered with dark green velvet and hung with fine wool carpets in flora and fauna designs.

Next to the large window to his right, twelve framed tiles depicted one of the most popular scenes in Middle Eastern folklore—three gazelles and a lion under a large tree, lush with leaves in shades of green and yellow. It was called the Tree of Life, and it originated as a mosaic on the floor of the bath in Hisham’s Palace, built by a wealthy . . .