by Vern Maine (Author)
Dear friend, This is the true story of what happened after we rescued my father, Daniel Rivera, from prison in Cuba in 1974. My best friend, Mike Grey, wrote the story of the rescue that preceded this tale, in a book he called, "North Until Dawn." Call it Book 1 if you like. You may have read it already. He explained there how we found the publisher's cache at the Far Away Campground in Salt Springs, Florida, and teamed up with Bob Rines and Scott Walker to carry out the rescue mission. But little has been known or told about what happened after that, until now. I completed this manuscript, call it Book 2, in the three years that followed, while I was attending school in Rindge, New Hampshire. But I kept it hidden these past many years in order to protect my friends and family from further persecution by the Communist regime in Cuba. Now that Fidel Castro is dead, it is time for this part of the story to be told...I begin first with Part I, the backstory of Rines' Vietnamese sweetheart, Hoa, and then with Part II, when my father and I returned from Key West to Salt Springs, only to face the rath of Castro, and the drama of fire in the forest, dragons in the water, bombs in the air, the reality of life and death, and the power of love. Buen provecho! Tomás Rivera