The Danger ( PDFDrive.com )

Dr. Geoffrey Gallagher leaned close to his office mirror and snipped an
offending hair from his left sideburn. As the star of the video documentary on
Poseidon–Saint-Luc, it was important for him to look his best. Jacques Cousteau
may have been a genius, but he was too short for the screen. And those hats!
Geoffrey Gallagher would put a new face on oceanography.
He turned around and regarded the three Californians seated on his couch —
Tad Cutter, Marina Kappas, and Chris Reardon from Poseidon–San Diego.
“Well, Tad, what happens now?” the director asked. “We send the kids
home, and you and your people go back to California?”
Cutter seemed surprised. “Of course not!” With the interns gone, he would
have no excuse to remain in the Caribbean to go after the treasure. “It was an
accident, Geoffrey.”
“You say that like someone dropped a tray in the commissary!” Gallagher
exclaimed irritably. “A man is dead; an adolescent girl very nearly lost her life
and may never walk again; and an eighteen-million-dollar piece of equipment is
lying broken at the bottom of the sea! That’s not an accident — that’s a
catastrophe!”
Marina spoke up. “Nobody’s downplaying the seriousness of what
happened. But why penalize the interns? You don’t know them like we do.
They’re good kids.”
Gallagher found himself nodding, not because he agreed with her, but
because Marina Kappas was drop-dead gorgeous. He found it hard to
concentrate when she was around.
“If anyone is to blame in all this,” Reardon took up the argument, “it’s
Braden Vanover. He didn’t deserve to die for it, but come on! What was he
thinking?”
“I agree,” said Gallagher. “Which brings up the question of where you were