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A cellphone appeared, with a call for me. It was Tariq al-Hashemi, the IIP leader, later to become the new government's vice president. I told Mr. Hashemi that I wanted him to call my hotel, and if no one from the Monitor was there, to call the Washington Post office and have them come get me. He said he would also call the U.S. Embassy. I begged him not to, but he insisted.

After a few minutes, a convoy of white SUVs and trucks with flashing lights and gunmen roared into the driveway and streets around the office. The IIP officials brought me downstairs and hurried me into a bulletproof luxury vehicle, complete with leather seats. I realized it was Hashemi's personal security detail. The lights and guns and military atmosphere terrified me.
I wanted to shout, "I don't want this!" as we zoomed away.

Things were going horribly wrong. The mujahideen were going to see me; they were going to kill us. They would think I lied, that I hadn't called my colleagues to come get me in a low-profile way. I doubled over in the seat, hiding below the ledge of the tinted windows.

A man sitting next to me laughed and said, "Why are you doing this?"
"I don't want them to see me," I said. Didn't he understand?! I wanted to shout at them to let me out, to stop, to make the cars with the flashing lights go away.

We tore down Baghdad's streets, a giant screaming convoy with guns sticking out everywhere. I was terrified that every ordinary car we passed was a car bomb sent by the mujahideen to kill me for breaking my promise.

"Be careful of car bombs, be careful," I told the man driving in Arabic. I checked the location of the door lock and handle in case the vehicle went up in flames and I needed to get out in a hurry.

The guards looked bemused, as if I was crazy, and said not to worry.
For me, my release is one of the hardest memories of my captivity. I don't know why. Suddenly, my structure was gone. There was no one to tell me what to do.

My body was free, but my mind was not. I was conditioned to be whatever anyone around me wanted me to be. I had no opinions, no self-will. I didn't know how to make decisions.

The IIP headquarters was a blur. They wanted to make a video of me, and they had me write a letter of thanks and make an audio recording. This was strictly to ensure that no one would accuse them of being my kidnappers, they said. The video was then widely broadcast.

Two close friends from the Washington Post, including Ellen Knickmeyer, the Iraq bureau chief, showed up. Someone gave me a phone, and I called my twin sister, Katie.

***

At 5:45 A.M. on March 30, Katie was awakened by a ringing phone. She rolled over, looked at the caller ID, and saw that someone in Iraq was trying to reach her. In an instant, she knew.

They say that dreams come true, but seldom in life is it given to any of us to have such a perfect moment.

She grabbed the phone. "Katie, it's me," said the voice on the other end of the line. "I'm free." Jill and Katie both started to cry.

As the Carroll family's chief communicator, Katie immediately launched into contact mode, calling people on a predetermined list, working from the East Coast toward the West as the sun rose.

She didn't have to call her parents. Jim and Mary Beth Carroll got their own wakeup calls from Jill.

At the Monitor's headquarters in Boston, the news spread quickly. Editors began looking through the happiest of their pre-made plans, the "Carroll Release Logistics."

In Cairo, staff writer Dan Murphy was having lunch with a journalist colleague. He and Scott Peterson had begun rotating in and out of Baghdad every few weeks. A friend from Reuters sent him an instant message: "Congratulations on Jill being free."

Mr. Murphy didn't believe it. After all, over the course of the past months he'd had nine or so false reports of Jill's freedom. He called back and told his friend nothing had happened. "No, man," his friend insisted, "we're just snapping it out of the States. 'The Christian Science Monitor confirms...' "

- P.G.

***

I made the video for the IIP. My state of mind was reflected in the fact that I felt guilty for delaying the start of filming so I could call members of my family.

I learned that Scott Peterson was still in Baghdad. I was sure he would have fled. I called him on Ellen's cellphone. He was at the CNN offices where he was working on a new set of public service videos about me.

I was still on the phone with Scott when the U.S. military arrived. I was so afraid of the soldiers. "What should I do, Scott?" He told me if they were there, they were the surest way to safety. I hung onto my friend Ellen from the Post as we went downstairs.

We got into an armored vehicle. I still had my big bag of stuff. I figured the mujahideen were watching. They were watching everything.

The hatches closed. We were driving along, and I finally started to relax.

One of the soldiers pulled out a picture of me that he had been carrying with him. "I don't need this anymore," he said, and gave it to me.

Another pulled off a flag that was attached with Velcro to his uniform, and gave that to me, too.

A third, sitting to my left, said "We've been looking for you for a long time."

How did these men know who I was? I didn't understand why they had a picture of me. I had no idea how much coverage my kidnapping had received.

I sat and talked with Ellen. After a few minutes, she said, "You can take off your hijab now."

"No, no," I said.

I waited a minute. Then I said, "Well, actually ... I guess I can."