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doesn’t count cards, he doesn’t cheat, he just has itches sometimes. And when he gets them, there’s always a reason.”
    “An itch?” Walker asked, trying to make the word make more sense.
    “An itch,” Holmes repeated. He flashed Walker a grim smile, then turned to the others. “We leave in thirty seconds. Check the sidewalk for traffic.”
    Forty-seven seconds later, they flung open the door and entered the target section of the building through the front door. A narrow set of stairs ran to the second floor.
    The stacking order was Holmes and Ruiz, then Laws and Fratolilio, then Walker. Hoover padded beside him. Walker glanced at the dog as it glanced at him. He couldn’t help but smile at the grinning mug. The dog seemed as excited as he was.
    Holmes and Ruiz took the stairs and cleared the landing above. The rest followed, checking their sixes as they traversed the stairs.
    Once they reached the landing, there wasn’t much choice about which way to go. The hall doglegged right, showing a single door on the wall and a window at the front. Holmes edged forward, careful of booby traps, looking for displaced dust, lines in the floorboards, and tripwire signs, but there was nothing. He made it to the window without harm. He stared at the buildings across the way for a full minute to ensure that he and his men weren’t about to enter a killing hallway. When he was certain that it was safe, he waved the others over.
    Ruiz stayed at the head of the stairs to ensure that no one snuck up behind them.
    Laws checked the doorjamb and the lock.
    Walker moved in a crouch near the window and took up the vigil with the aid of the Stoner’s scope. He fought the exhilaration and concentrated on his assignment.
    Fratty pulled out his tablet and showed the others what he expected the room to look like. It was basically a large rectangle. It had another window like the one Walker was staring through, but other than that and the door, there were no avenues of egress.
    Hoover padded over and gave the door a sniff. She seemed to be interested in something.
    Everyone went silent as Holmes and Fratty checked out the schematics one more time. When he was finally ready, Holmes ordered Ruiz and Walker to stay put, then stacked the remaining three SEALs at the door. He held up a hand and silently counted down to five.
    Ruiz fired his Super 90 into the lock, and then Holmes kicked it open. The three of them crashed into the room, weapons aimed left, right, and center.
    “Clear.”
    “Clear.”
    “Clear.”
    “What the hell, Fratty?” came Laws’s voice. “There’s nothing here.”
    “Ruiz, deploy a wire and get in here. Walker, you follow.”
    Each of the men squelched the radio to let him know they heard.
    Behind Walker, Ruiz deployed an electronic tripwire at the top of the stairs and tuned to the same frequency they were using for a command channel on their MBITRs. Consisting of an infrared actuator and a transmitter, it would tell them if anyone was moving in behind them.
    Ruiz finished with his setup, signaled Walker, then moved into the room.
    Walker took one last look through his scope; then he too followed.
    The room was empty. Not even a piece of trash littered the floor. The far wall and the outside wall were made of brick, while the back and side walls were made of wood. The floor was a sickly green linoleum, peeling in places.
    Laws shook his head. “I’ll say it again. What the hell, Fratty?”
    “I don’t know what to say. We’re at the right address. We’re in the right room. It has to be the intel.”
    “Won’t be the first time intel didn’t pan,” Ruiz said.
    Hoover got tired of standing in the middle of the room and began to sniff the baseboards.
    Ruiz and Laws checked the brick wall.
    Walker again posted near the window and scanned the buildings across the street. For a moment, he thought he saw someone looking at them, but it was just a guy in his underwear, leaning over his balcony railing smoking a