"Newman, Kim - The McCarthy Witch Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

Matthew Cvetic, a warlock turncoat Finlay wouldn't have let in the office
door. Now the crackpot specialised in giving lectures and leaving bad
debts. Just one of the trash people swept along at the edges of the
crusade.
'Kinda like,' Finlay said.
'Is Goody Stevens a witch?'
'You didn't hear that from us.'
'You got guns?'
Together, Finlay and Dwight lifted jackets to show the handles of their
automatics.
'Gee whiz,' Jim said, and whistled.
'Keep an eye on the Stevens wench, would you,' Finlay asked. 'Just to be
careful.'
He finished his coffee, scattered coins on the counter, and pushed away,
dragging Dwight with him.
Jim would remember the tip. But he would also remember the guns and the
badge. Mostly, however, what he would do was talk.

1950
Appropriately, the evidence had been inside a pumpkin. Pages from a Grand
Grimoire, which Alger Hiss intended to disseminate throughout the witch
world. Finlay understood there were incantations which made the pikadon
look like a lightbulb. Outside the Foley Square courthouse, crowds jostled
for a look at the Satanic traitor. Many wore the wide-brimmed pilgrim hats
that were suddenly in fashion, black circles dotting the crowd like
mushroom heads. Earlier they had given a spontaneous cheer and sung hymns
when Hiss's accuser, Goodman Whittaker Chambers, was escorted in triumph
from the building.
Finlay gripped Hiss's arm and guided him down the steps, hat pulled over
his own face, breath frosting in the January cold. Flashbulbs burst all
around. There had been death threats from pious Americans and Satanic
cults. Banners hung from buildings, quoting the Bible about not suffering
witches. A few brave souls were trying to get up petitions against the
conviction but they'd have bloody noses by the end of the day. Church
groups were there to abominate the apostate, and others to look at the man
who had opened the way for another, potentially final, witch war.
Hiss was quiet, small, insignificant, negligible. Even with the verdict
in, Finlay was unsure of his guilt. Something about Chambers made worms
wriggle in his gut. But it was necessary that Hiss be guilty if the
crusade were to continue. The warlock meant less in himself than he did as
a focus for righteous wrath. The American public needed to be angry about
something; if they found it easier to be angry about one egghead
bureaucrat than an entire international conspiracy of devil-worshippers,
then Finlay would have to go along with that. It was what democracy was
all about.
There would be no more sentiment about 'our witches' now. Berlin was
officially a needless horror, a diplomatic dead end taken to finish a war
that was already over, easily blamed on the dead Roosevelt, nothing to do
with the current administration. Condemnations and pronouncements were
coming in from all around the world.