As soon as the car door slammed shut, the panic that had been surging inside me died down.
In its place was . . . nothing.
I was numb again. A dead man being driven through the city’s dark winter streets, watching the alien world beyond the glass.
It took longer to reach the new prison than it did to get to Harmandali. Mile after mile we drove, me in the back seat of the car that smelled of stale cigarettes and sweat, the same two officers up front saying nothing to each other. In the whole drive there was just one interaction between us. “You have lived here for so many years. Did you really think you could work with refugees and not have problems? How could you be so stupid?”
I didn’t bother to answer. There’s a lot I could have said, but I was emotionally exhausted. And what would be the point? They wouldn’t care anyway—I was just another prisoner to transport.
I sat motionless, my eyes closed. I could feel a massive spiritual storm starting to build, more intense than anything I had ever experienced.
Within minutes I was surrounded by a demonic whirlwind, a furious darkness swirling around me. This was not emotional turmoil—I could feel the evil.
The drumbeat of a new thought started up in my mind. I am Job. I am Job. I am Job.
In the Bible, God handed Job over to Satan to be tested, to see whether he would remain faithful in the midst of intense suffering.
In that moment I knew—God had turned me over! God had changed his mind, removed his protection in order to achieve some higher purpose, but at my expense. No, this was not just persecution, it was something else.
My heart was a morass of fear, shock, and anger: How could you betray me like this, God?
The car turned off at the Sakran exit, just a few miles before Pergamum. It was fitting. Pergamum—the city that Jesus had identified as the place of Satan’s throne.
SAKRAN PRISON is not really one prison, but seven. It’s a campus spread over a space the size of one hundred football fields and it’s home to ten thousand inmates—murderers and revolutionaries, subversives and psychopaths, women and children.
I was taken to prison T4 and placed in a cell with bars—a cage really—until they were ready to process me. I was fingerprinted and photographed again, sent through metal detectors, then strip-searched. “Take your clothes off. Squat. Cough.”
At one point a guard brought in the few items I had been allowed to bring from Harmandali.
I did not have much with me—the young sneering cop had kept me from taking clothes except what I was wearing, some extra socks, and underwear. I had grabbed my Bible. Now I watched helplessly as they took it away.
I LEARNED QUICKLY that compared to Sakran, Harmandali was like a resort. Sakran was a high-security prison, and everything about it felt different. The gates were higher, the windows smaller, the corridors broken up every few feet by another heavy metal door that had to be unlocked.
The guards were different too. At Harmandali some of them had shouted and cursed at the inmates while others were more sympathetic. But all of them were civilians. They’d slouch in doorways and some of them would even talk to you if they were feeling good. In Sakran the guards were more intense. There was no friendly chitchat, and when they gave commands they expected immediate obedience. Their eyes were full of suspicion, and as they moved about the prison it was always in groups, never alone.
There was no flexibility and little or no communication. I knew nothing about what was going to happen to me. I felt weaker than I had felt at any point in my life. I felt exactly the way they wanted me to.
The feeling of numbness stayed with me. I stood when I was told, walked on command, and paused in silence while the guards unlocked the door of the cell I was placed in. It was like it all was happening to somebody else.
The guard stood on the other side of the heavy metal door, looking at me through the small slot that could only be opened from the outside. “You’re going to be here over the weekend until we decide what to do with you.”
I looked around. Every part of the cell was filthy—the floor, the sheets on the bunk bed, the bag of bread covered in thick, green mold hanging from the barred window, the squat toilet covered in human filth. I had no appetite and couldn’t imagine myself sleeping, but I knew I needed to drink. I was concerned that the tap water would make me sick so I asked the guard for a bottle of water.
“No,” he said, turning to leave. “It’s the weekend.”
I hadn’t been on my own all day, not since the guard took me out of the concrete cell in the Counter-Terror Center. The silence troubled me, and I tried to fill it by preparing mentally for a few days in complete isolation. I’d been through it before at the start of my time in Harmandali, when I had no books, no Bible, nothing. But this was different. The stress was greater. I was accused of terror crimes and held in a high-security prison. Being alone wasn’t the worst thing possible. What if I ended up with some real criminals? How would a terrorist react when he found out he was sharing a cell with me? I knew I would be the only American, the only Christian, and certainly the only missionary. I had no idea how to even begin to prepare for a situation like that. No matter what I did, I knew I could be a target.
I found the cleanest of the dirty sheets, pillows, and blankets and prepared a bed. I was physically exhausted after no sleep the previous night and the horrible day but I paced the room. Even though I felt betrayed by God, I knew I had no choice but to look to him and try to hold on. My prayers were short, simple, and repetitive. I could only say, again and again, “Jesus, help me.”
AN HOUR AFTER I was locked inside, I heard the many door bolts and locks open. The guard was back with a colleague. “Come with us,” he said once he had opened my door. “The director wants to see you.”
As I walked into his office the director frowned at me, like he was genuinely trying to figure me out. “Why are you here?” he said after I’d waited in silence, standing before his desk.
“I’m a pastor. I didn’t do anything.”
The frown dropped, replaced by a vague smile. “Is that so? You’re with the FETO group, aren’t you?”
“No! I’ve never even met a Gulenist in my life.”
The director looked down at a paper on his desk. “Well,” he sighed, “that’s what you’re in prison for. I’m going to send you to a cell now. There’s one on C Block.”
The fear lurched within me. “You have to be careful who you put me with. Some people could really dislike me because of who I am.”
“Don’t worry. You won’t be put with common criminals. People accused of terror crimes are always grouped together.”
What kind of people would he put me with? The prosecutor had mentioned both FETO and the PKK. If he sent me to a PKK cell, it would be a rougher crowd—men who had spent years fighting in the mountains. What would they do to me? On the plus side, I would learn to speak Kurdish . . .
“Don’t worry,” said the director, his face blank. “I’m putting you in with some Gulenists. They’re all harmless. Most of them are just schoolteachers.”
Minutes later I was standing outside another solid metal door, watching one of the guards pull back bolts as long as his arm and open at least three separate locks—a thick bolt with a heavy padlock, a deadbolt, and a third separate mechanism that required something like a tire-changing tool to turn it and shoot bolts into the steel frame. There was no getting out of this cell.
With great apprehension I stepped inside.
Eleven faces turned from the TV on the wall and fixed their eyes on me. They were sitting on plastic chairs around two plastic tables eating sunflower seeds.
“I have a new friend for you,” said the head guard. “Someone help him find a bed.” He left and the door locks clicked into place behind me.
One of the men spoke up. “Who are you?”
“Have you eaten?” said another voice. “We have cookies if you want one.”
“Have some tea.”
Their faces were interested, kind even. They certainly looked a lot more like teachers than terrorists.
I opened my mouth to speak, but burst out weeping. I had held in my emotions since leaving Norine, but now my defenses collapsed at their welcome.
LATER, AS I LAY ON MY BUNK—a bottom one that the youngest inmate had given me when I told him that I’d had neck surgery six months earlier—I could hear the tinkling of the tea glasses as they stirred the sugar cubes in and their talking while the TV played on. I could also smell their cigarette smoke wafting up to the sleeping area. I still felt relieved at my cellmates’ reception.
But I was terrified as well. Sakran was worse than anything I had experienced so far. The locks, the bars, the way the guards behaved—it was impossible to ignore the fact that I was now in a real prison.
I was being treated like a genuine terrorist.