She followed me onto the balcony off the living room, where Lotty has a little table and chairs in the summer. I offered refreshments, and left her standing there, looking out over Lake Michigan, while I burrowed in Lotty’s kitchen. She practically survives on Viennese coffee, but I found some German herbal infusions in the back of a drawer. When I returned to the balcony with a tray, precariously balanced between my bandaged palms, Sister Carolyn sat down and asked how I knew the FBI was watching the Freedom Center building.

“I don’t know if the FBI is involved. Homeland Security took the pictures.” I explained what I’d learned from today’s interview, including the news that the feds photographed everyone entering and leaving.

“That’s so outrageous. Why on earth?”

“I don’t know. When they questioned me in the hospital, they were dancing like rhinos around the subject. They implied it could be because of your tenants. You’re the one who knows if you’re treading on their toes.”

“Treading on their toes? It’s true we protest at the School of the Americas. We work with poor immigrants, with refugees, with people on death row. We’re involved in affordable housing. And peace. But we don’t do anything clandestine or immoral. We don’t sell drugs or weapons or spy on people.”

“You know darned well you’re rocking the whole aircraft carrier with those issues. America as armed camp is the status quo. Peace, letting in immigrants, ending torture, ending the death penalty: no wonder they think you’re a threat. There must be a whole floor of that building on the Potomac dedicated to your Freedom Center.”

“But that means we’re endangering the other tenants,” Zabinska said, worried. “We don’t own the building, but the management company that does has been pretty generous. They let us run the Freedom Center out of the ground-floor apartments. Five of us sisters attached to the center rent there, and we’ve ended up working with a lot of the other tenants because so many are either refugees or are trying to figure out how to get health care or housing vouchers. Maybe we should see about moving the ones who’re most at risk for deportation. Everyone’s pretty scared as it is because of the fire bombs.”

“You’d better be very careful where and how you talk about it,” I warned her. “They probably are listening to all your conversations, not just your phones.”

She was outraged, of course, especially when I explained how hard it is to detect or block a sophisticated eavesdropper, which the feds certainly are. We talked over her options. Technological solutions were outside her budget, and playing cloak-and-dagger, with codes and meetings off premises, was too time-consuming.