BAGHDAD, Iraq – Susan Hallums heard a tired but sweetly familiar voice in a surprise phone call early Wednesday morning telling her that her family ordeal was over.

The call came from her ex-husband, Roy Hallums, who said that U.S. troops had freed him 10 months after he was kidnapped in Iraq.

U.S. military officials said they rescued Hallums, 57, and an Iraqi hostage at about 11:20 a.m. Wednesday from a farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad. An Iraqi detainee gave them a tip that morning, said Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a military spokesman.

“Sorry I’m late for dinner,” Hallums told his ex-wife.

Hallums was referring to the Thanksgiving dinner he was supposed to attend nearly a year ago. He had bought a plane ticket to fly home last Nov. 20. But he was captured Nov. 1 and has been held ever since.

The only public word of his fate came in January when the hostage-takers released a videotape of him pleading for help, with a high-powered gun pointed at his head.

“I always had a sense that he was alive and that I would get a call like this,” said Susan Hallums, in a telephone interview. Despite their divorce two years ago after 30 years of marriage, the two remained friendly, and Susan Hallums had dedicated nearly all her time trying to secure his release.

The U.S. military said Hallums is in good health and that no one was injured during the rescue. It didn’t release any other details.

U.S. officials lauded the intelligence gathering that led to the rescue.

The tip “was good enough to create a very fast operation before he was potentially moved,” Boylan said. “Part of the interrogation process is building a rapport with the detainee.”

Susan Hallums, of Corona, Calif., said the couple’s two daughters were often too distraught to lead the search. So she spent 12 hours a day in her home office doing anything she could think of to secure his release. She hung two signs in the office. One read “Miracles are possible if you believe.” The other said “Faith will see you through.”