This fictional story, interlaced with historical facts, depicts events experienced by many families who left Cuba personified in the lives of five children who migrated unaccompanied to the U.S., their lives in Cuba and their arrival in the U.S. THE FIVE SEEKERS escape through Operation Pedro Pan. Since I came to the U.S. as a political refugee with my parents, I have always longed for Cuba to be free again. This desire motivated me to write this book where I can show the readers a picture of Cuban history, the reality of Communist Cuba, and possible solutions to bring about a Free Cuba. Operation Pedro Pan (Peter Pan) was a clandestine operation created by Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh that ran from 1960 to 1962 and moved more than 14,000 unaccompanied minors from Cuba to the United States when the Castro regime was threatening to indoctrinate these minors after winning a bloody revolution. The novel’s characters undergo experiences, both in Cuba and in the U.S., which shape their personalities, their love for Cuba, and their anger for those who destroyed what was a thriving country until 1959.

In flashbacks offered throughout the story, we learn the background of each of the five main characters, their experiences in an orphanage in the U.S., as they all grow up from small children alone in a new and unfamiliar country, to successful and well-educated men and women who are obsessed with the idea of giving the freedom they now have, back to Cuba. The novel not only describes their immense and difficult quest, but also their personalities, their solid faith in God, and the strong bond that their quest creates between them. This bond is the glue that makes their operation go forward. One of the girls, Juliana, a main character, becomes a strong and brave woman while executing the most dangerous assignments in the story. They then hatch a plan to bring democracy back to Cuba. In the story, set in the Ronald Reagan era, they name their audacious scheme Operation Oro Negro (Black Gold). It entails having secret meetings with government officials, encounters with Cuban patrol boats on the high seas, and hydro-logical science studies, to prove the presence of massive oil reserves under the waters surrounding the island of Cuba. Would the U.S. government make the decision to invade Cuba because it has secretly discovered ample oil reserves?