KUBINKA AIR BASE, MOSCOW —15 MARCH 2009

President Luganov’s motorcade roared up the tarmac at precisely 9 a.m.

Stepping out of his armor-plated limousine, the Russian leader walked briskly past the honor guard standing at attention on both sides of the red carpet, with Special Agent Pavel Kovalev, chief of the president’s security detail, close behind him. There was no crowd to cheer, no members of the press or any cameras to smile for. This trip was not on his official schedule. Indeed, only a handful of people on the planet knew it was going to happen. Luganov bounded up the metal stairs and entered the presidential aircraft —a wide-body, specially outfitted, four-engine Ilyushin Il-96 jet —and took his seat in the back.

Defense Minister Mikhail Petrovsky followed the president onto the plane, as did Dmitri Nimkov, the head of the FSB, and Boris Zakharov, the president’s chief of staff, along with a phalanx of bodyguards and several military aides. Last, and for the first time since joining the presidential staff, Oleg Kraskin boarded the plane. He worked hard to maintain a professional demeanor, but the truth was Oleg was terribly excited to have been asked to join the delegation, though not nearly as excited as Marina was for her husband to be taking another step deeper into her father’s confidence.

Since Luganov’s decision to invade Georgia and occupy no less than 20 percent of that former Soviet republic —and since Oleg’s decision not to simply defend but to fully and even aggressively support the president in each and every tense conversation with leaders in Beijing —Oleg’s relationship with his father-in-law had deepened considerably. Word of his fierce and vocal loyalty had gotten back to Luganov and had been both noted and appreciated.

Though Luganov never said a word to him, Oleg could see that his duties and responsibilities were steadily expanding, and he was certain it could all be traced back to the summer of 2008. Increasingly, he was being asked not merely to take notes of the most confidential of meetings the president had in the Kremlin and elsewhere in Moscow. He was also given recordings of all the president’s phone calls with members of the Duma and various world leaders and instructed to produce official transcriptions. In fact, in recent months, the chief of staff had invited him to actually be on most of these calls live, taking notes in real time. He was included in all senior staff meetings. He was given various follow-up assignments of increasing complexity and sensitivity, and he had even begun traveling with the president on most trips within the Russian provinces.

But until now Oleg had never been included on any official state trips. Instead, two colonels from the Defense Ministry typically rotated in the role of private secretary when Luganov traveled abroad or to meet with foreign heads of state. Oleg certainly had been given a tremendous window into the thinking and the actions of Luganov and those in his inner circle, and for this he was grateful. But he secretly yearned for more. While he often reminded himself that 142 million other Russians would give their right arm to have his job, the truth was he wanted to travel abroad with the president. He wanted to counsel and advise him, to be a participant in history, not simply the recorder of it. He privately resented being treated somewhat like a child, being “seen but not heard.” Back at his law firm, he had been a partner —the youngest in the firm’s history. He’d been an active member of the team, looked to for his opinions and insights in addition to his loyalty and hard work. This had not been the case since coming to work at the Kremlin. But now, without explanation, the president had personally asked Oleg to accompany him on a mysterious trip to meet with an as-yet-unidentified world leader, and neither of the colonels were anywhere in sight.

Oleg marveled at the luxurious interior of the presidential aircraft code-named “Command Point” as he took his assigned seat just behind the president, buckled up, and prepared for takeoff. The dozen oversize seats located in the center of the plane were all upholstered in white leather with the seal of the Russian president embossed in gold on each headrest. There was also a white leather couch that seated four. In the rear of the plane were a conference room and the galley, from which stewards prepared everything from snacks to hors d’oeuvres to gourmet meals and served vodka and wine as well as soft drinks, coffee, and chai. Toward the front of the cabin, adjacent to the cockpit, was a bedroom for the president, a medical bay, and a communications center providing secure voice and data links to anywhere in the world.

Ten minutes later, the Ilyushin was airborne. The moment they reached a cruising altitude of thirty-six thousand feet, the seat belt light went off, and Luganov asked Petrovsky, Nimkov, and Zakharov to join him in the conference room. Oleg, still not briefed on exactly where they were going, gazed out the window at the clouds and the sunshine, just glad to be on board at all.

“Come, Oleg Stefanovich. What are you waiting for? Bring your notebook.”

Oleg looked up at his father-in-law and then at the other aides, who appeared nearly as surprised as he was. Oleg was being summoned into the inner sanctum, and he was as thrilled as he was stunned.

Once the door was shut behind them, Luganov took his seat at the head of the conference table, impassive and inscrutable. Oleg went to sit at the far end, but the president told him to sit next to Zakharov instead. Oleg complied. As he opened a fresh notebook and took a pen from his breast pocket, he noticed that Luganov was dressed in a dark-blue business suit, a crisp white shirt, and a navy-blue silk tie with small white polka dots. It was a small detail, but he remembered that this was precisely what his father-in-law had been wearing the day they had first met, the day Oleg had asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

It quickly became apparent where they were heading —Vladivostok, site of Russia’s largest naval base, located on the Sea of Japan at the extreme southeastern corner of the Russian Empire. Defense Minister Petrovsky explained that he had ordered his staff to arrange the trip on the premise that he would be conducting a surprise inspection of the submarine fleet that constituted the bulk of Russia’s ability to project power into the Pacific. Petrovsky would, in fact, do just that, accompanied by Zakharov. But the real purpose of the trip was something entirely different. Once in Vladivostok, the president, FSB Chief Nimkov, and Oleg would be driven to a secret military facility where they would have dinner with the reclusive leader of North Korea, who would be arriving by train.

“Why by train?” Luganov asked.

“He is petrified of flying, Your Excellency.”

“How far is that journey?”

“Almost five hundred miles.”

Oleg stopped writing for a moment and looked at Petrovsky. Five hundred miles by train? he wondered, though he said nothing. This North Korean really is insane.

That turned out to be an understatement. Nimkov reminded Luganov that the man had several titles he would appreciate being used when they met. He wanted to be referred to as the “Ever-Victorious, Iron-Willed Commander.” He also wanted a reference made to the “Glorious General Who Descended from Heaven.” While he was partial to “Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love,” he would not be offended if Luganov preferred to simply call him the “Guiding Star of the Twenty-First Century.”

Oleg could have written a book about the absolutely bizarre eccentricities of the North Korean dictator he observed during the two-hour meeting between the two leaders, from what he wore to what he ate to how he expressed himself. But what truly disturbed Oleg was how close Luganov seemed to be to this madman. Oleg had never participated in —much less created a transcript of —a single call between the two leaders. Yet the evidence suggested the two men had spoken dozens of times over the past few years. They clearly had a history together, and they were using a personal shorthand to build their framework for an entirely new bilateral relationship.

At first, none of it computed. On the plane, Petrovsky had advised Luganov on ways to persuade the North Koreans to end their nuclear weapons program and enter into a new round of six-party peace talks with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States. Luganov had acted as if he fully agreed with his defense minister. But once Petrovsky left the room, it became obvious that defusing the North Korean threat was not Luganov’s objective at all.

As Oleg took notes during the meeting between the two heads of state, it was clear that Luganov was trying to clandestinely flip Pyongyang’s allegiance from Beijing to Moscow. In so doing, he seemed willing to help Pyongyang become a regional powerhouse ready and able to intimidate and even dominate Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and everyone else in the Pacific Rim. To accomplish this, Luganov offered to cancel North Korea’s $11 billion debt to Russia and provide some $2 billion in new Russian grain shipments. That’s why, Luganov said, he’d persuaded five oligarchs to be prepared to invest upward of $25 billion in developing North Korean natural resources like coal and iron ore over the next decade. That was also why Luganov was offering Moscow’s technical assistance with helping Pyongyang build ballistic missiles capable not only of carrying nuclear warheads but of reaching the continental United States.

Luganov’s chilling offers were immediately accepted, but there was more to the conspiracy the two leaders were concocting. They agreed that to throw the West —as well as Beijing —off the scent, Russia would publicly and forcefully condemn Pyongyang’s ongoing nuclear weapons tests. They even wrote the press release together. What’s more, they agreed that Russia’s Foreign Ministry would actively support additional economic sanctions against North Korea at the U.N. Security Council meeting later that month.

It would all be a show. The “Guiding Star” couldn’t have made himself more clear that he eagerly sought to be the Pacific arm of a “rising new Russian Empire.” He agreed to fully share the results of North Korea’s ICBM testing with scientists from Tehran in order to help the Islamic Republic of Iran become the Middle Eastern arm of the new Russian Empire. Then, in the final minutes of their time together, the two men lowered their voices and somewhat cryptically agreed to be helpful to each other on “additional projects of mutual concern.” Oleg wasn’t sure what they meant. Nor was he certain he wanted to know. But he dutifully wrote down every word he heard through the official translator and kept his mouth shut.