Maybe I’m being a little bit of a downer. Our relationship was actually better than I portray it. I never doubted that she was always proud of her little bro. In fact, she’s already brought the girls up here to visit Uncle Big Mouth. But whatever it was she was calling about, it just wasn’t the right time. By the time I went back to work, I had already forgotten about my conversation with Marty Shaw.

Apparently I’d made much more of an impression on him than I had imagined. Three nights later, I got the biggest surprise of my career. It was almost nine o’clock. I was still at my desk, trying to piece together a story about those seemingly innocent places in the budget where Congress hides billions of dollars for intelligence operations. Specialized Educational Benefits, $2.3 billion? Transportation in Developing Nations, $1.4 billion?

I was just finishing a Google Duo talk with Jenny, who was reviewing proposed legislation for political traps, to figure out where we would meet for a late dinner, when I received an anonymous chat request. The caller’s sign-in name was NFA, the reporter’s catchall meaning “not for attribution.” No reporter in history has ever rejected a mysterious anonymous call. “Hold on a second,” I told Jenny. “Let me see who this is.”

A few seconds later a grainy video popped up on my monitor. It was black and white, very dark, and for several seconds I couldn’t figure out what it was. Whatever it was, it was framed, and I realized someone using a handheld device, a cell phone most likely, was recording a scene from a different source. That’s one way of protecting your identity. As my eyes focused, I saw a soldier in full gear standing about two feet away. That’s when I figured out this was night-vision footage from a body cam.

“Holy shit,” I whispered. Thank you, oh great father Thomas Alva Edison.

I remembered that Jenny was on hold, but I was afraid to switch back, afraid this might have been sent to me by mistake and I might lose it. Without taking my eyes off the screen for an instant I said, “Cher, send a message to Jenny. Tell her I’ll call her back.” I grabbed a cell phone, tapped the video camera icon, and aimed it at the screen. I paused the video. I rewound it.

Two years ago I was invited to speak about journalism at the VA’s career fair. During the Q and A, I was asked where story ideas come from. “Everywhere,” I’d said. “Everything you read, everything you see, every conversation. You’re always looking for something that sparks your curiosity. Then you start digging. And you dig and dig and dig, and then sometimes while you’re digging, a story drops on your head.” Like this one. I added one more tidbit. When you’re working on a story, it takes over your life, it’s always on your mind, and when that happens, you realize this isn’t your story, it’s the story that owns you. David Marash, the legendary Nightline correspondent, once described it to me as “going into the trance.” While you’re working on it, that story becomes the most important thing in your life. The only thing that matters. Well, I thought, here we go again. I pressed play.