Story highlights Jeffrey Gettleman recalls an incident from 2004, when he was briefly detained by terrorists

Reporters aren't supposed to lie. But on that day, it was a lie that saved my life, he says

Jeffrey Gettleman is the East Africa bureau chief of The New York Times. His new memoir, "Love, Africa", from which part of this article was adapted, was published this month. He will appear on Fareed Zakaria GPS this Sunday, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN. The views expressed are his own.

(CNN) Several years ago, when I was a young reporter and desperate to prove myself, I found myself barreling down a highway toward Falluja. This was 2004, when Iraq was beginning its descent into chaos. A squad of American Marines had just been killed and I was eager to get the story. I was new at The New York Times and took on what I now see was a stupid amount of risk.

The road was supposed to be clear. But as the highway bent to the left, a blue van shot across our path and screeched to a halt 50 feet in front of us, cutting us off. The van's doors flew open. Our driver slammed on the brakes. We careened off the tarmac, and by the time we stopped, dust hanging in the air, we were surrounded by dozens of armed masked men.

Jeffrey Gettleman

"We're dead! We're dead!" screamed a female colleague sitting next to me in the back seat. I felt her fingernails dig into the flesh of my arm.

Dozens more gunmen flooded into the road, clutching assault rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers. Our car was bulletproof, but not that bulletproof, and when 20 masked men surround you, banging the tips of their rifles on your window and ordering you out, all you can think of is how exactly this will end.

Will they shoot you or saw off your head? Burn you alive? Who will find your body?

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