Longreads

ABSTRACT: A REPORTER AT LARGE about the arrest and trial of arms trafficker Viktor Bout. Describes Bout’s first major foray into the weapons business in 1995, when he transported weapons to…

When News Corp. officials gathered in the Hong Kong convention center in March to unveil their latest Chinese Internet investment, a tall woman in their midst handed out a business card that read simply, "News Corporation/Wendi Deng Murdoch." Ms. Deng is not a News Corp. employee. Once a junior executive at the company's Star TV unit in Hong Kong, the 31-year-old Ms. Deng quit her post before marrying News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch last year. Since then, she has been portrayed—by Mr. Murdoch and the company—as a traditional housewife who attends to decorating, her husband's diet and the like. But Ms. Deng is no homebody.

On a cold March evening in Manhattan, Ayman Mohyeldin rode in the back of a black Lincoln Town Car on his way to an…