The flight to Zurich took thirteen hours.
Andy sat in business class—his first splurge, $8,000 that meant nothing now—and couldn't sleep. The seat converted into a flat bed, soft as surrender. The flight attendant offered champagne, whiskey, sleeping pills. He declined everything and watched the flight map on the screen, the small airplane icon crawling across Russia, Poland, Germany.
Every hour, he checked his burner phone. No messages. No calls. James had vanished like smoke, as promised. The wire confirmations had arrived in batches—Liechtenstein, Cayman, Singapore—each one adding zeros until the numbers stopped making sense.
$370,000,000.
He typed it into his notes app, stared at it, deleted it. Typed it again with commas: $370,000,000. Deleted it. Tried to write it in words—three hundred and seventy million—and his thumbs cramped, refusing to finish.
Somewhere over the Alps, the flight attendant leaned close. "Sir, you look unwell. Can I get you anything?"
"I'm fine," Andy said. His voice came out rough, unused.
"You've been gripping the armrest for three hours. Your knuckles are white."
Andy looked down. His fingers were indeed locked around the leather, tendons standing out like cables under too much tension. He forced them open, one by one, feeling the blood return in pins and needles.
"Just nervous," he said. "Big meeting tomorrow."
The attendant smiled, professional and unreadable. "We have Valium. Prescription, but... discreet."
"No. Thank you."
He didn't want to be sedated. Didn't want to miss a moment of this, even the terror. Especially the terror. It felt like payment, like penance for the hubris of knowing the future.
Zurich was cold.
Not Bandung-cool or Singapore-humid. Real cold, biting, the kind that found gaps in your clothing and pressed against your skin like warning. Andy had bought a coat at Changi Airport—cashmere, charcoal gray, $4,000 that the saleswoman hadn't blinked at—and still he shivered walking from the taxi to the Pictet Group building on Rue du Rhône.
The building was old money personified. Limestone facade, brass fixtures, a doorman in a uniform that probably cost more than Andy's first car. He paused on the steps, looking up at the carved letters: PICTET & CIE.
This is real, he told himself. This is happening.
His legs didn't want to move. He stood there, frozen in every sense, while Zurich businessmen in better coats flowed around him like water around a stone. A woman bumped his shoulder, murmured apology in German, didn't look back.
Andy thought about running. Flying back to Jakarta, finding a small apartment, living quietly on a fraction of this money. The thought was seductive, almost physical in its pull. Safety. Anonymity. No one asking where three hundred million dollars came from.
But he had twelve years of knowledge. Twelve years of watching others build empires while he filed reports and paid mortgages. Twelve years of if only.
He climbed the steps.
The private banking floor was on the fourth level, accessible only by a separate elevator with wood-paneled walls and no buttons. The reception area had no desk, no chairs, just a space of carpet and silence where a man in a navy suit materialized from nowhere.
"Mr. Andy?"
"Yes."
"Henri Dubois. Head of New Client Acquisition." The accent was French-Swiss, polished as the marble floors. "Your flight was comfortable?"
"Fine, thank you."
"And your accommodations? We reserved a suite at the Dolder Grand. I trust it's satisfactory?"
"I haven't been yet. Came straight here."
Dubois's expression shifted—microscopically, but Andy caught it. Surprise, perhaps. Or reassessment. Most new clients with nine-figure deposits didn't arrive in yesterday's shirt, smelling of airplane and anxiety.
"This way, please."
The office was smaller than expected. No corner windows, no panoramic views of the lake. Just a room of dark wood and leather, a desk that had probably witnessed the formation of nations, and two chairs that faced each other like interrogation equipment.
Dubois didn't sit behind the desk. He took the facing chair, creating intimacy or trap, Andy couldn't tell.
"So," Dubois said. "Three hundred and seventy million US dollars. Originating from... various sources. Sports wagering, I understand. Spread across forty-seven jurisdictions to avoid aggregation limits."
"That's correct."
"Mr. Andy, do you understand what you've done?"
The question landed like a physical weight. Andy felt his spine compress, his shoulders hunching instinctively.
"I've... won money."
"You've broken the spirit, if not the letter, of regulations in at least twelve countries. You've exploited systemic weaknesses in global betting markets. You've created a financial event that will be studied—and potentially investigated—for years." Dubois leaned forward. "And you've done it at twenty-two years old, with no prior history of gambling, no family wealth, no apparent source of expertise."
Andy said nothing. His hands had found each other in his lap, fingers interlaced, squeezing until the joints ached.
He thought of his parents. His mother, Siti Aminah, born 1955, teaching third graders in a state elementary school in Bandung for thirty years, her hands permanently stained with chalk dust and red pen ink. His father, Bambang Firmasyah, born 1954, a middle cadre at Telkom who'd risen through the ranks not through brilliance but through persistence—thirty years of showing up early, staying late, never complaining about the men who leapfrogged him with connections he didn't have.
They had never gambled. Never speculated. Never dreamed of numbers with nine digits. Their combined annual income wouldn't clear twenty thousand dollars. Their retirement plan was their son.
What will they say? Andy wondered. What can they possibly say?
"How did you do it?" Dubois asked. Not curious. Clinical.
"I was lucky."
"Forty-seven consecutive correct predictions is not luck. It's either fraud or..." He paused, searching for the word. "Or something else. Something I don't understand."
"Does it matter? The money is real. The taxes are paid. Your fee is generous."
Dubois studied him for a long moment. Then he stood, walked to the desk, and returned with a tablet.
"Standard due diligence. We must verify your identity, source of funds, and intended use of our services."
The questions took two hours. Andy answered mechanically—birth certificate, passport, ITB transcripts, parents' names, grandparents' occupations. Every answer felt like stripping naked, layer by layer, in a room that was too cold.
When they reached the financial section, Dubois's tone changed. Softer. Almost sympathetic.
"Mr. Andy, have you ever managed wealth of this magnitude?"
"No."
"Do you have a family office? Investment advisors? Tax strategists?"
"No."
"Have you told anyone about this money? Parents, friends, partners?"
Andy thought of Sarah, suddenly and painfully. The text message he'd ignored, the calls that had stopped after three days. She would have known by now, in Bandung. Everyone would know. The ITB graduate who sold his car and vanished.
"No one," he said.
Dubois nodded, making notes. "Then we must discuss something difficult. Wealth of this magnitude is not merely an asset. It is a condition. A medical condition, in many ways. It will change your relationships, your psychology, your sense of reality. Most people who acquire sudden fortune lose it within five years. Or lose themselves."
"I won't."
"You say that now. They all say that." Dubois set down the tablet. "But you are different, I think. The fear in your eyes is not the fear of losing money. It is the fear of having it. That is... unusual. Potentially healthy."
He stood, extended his hand.
"Welcome to Pictet, Mr. Andy. We will build structures around you. Trusts, foundations, holding companies. You will become invisible, legally speaking. The money will work without your daily attention. This is our specialty—making wealth feel... manageable."
Andy shook the hand. It was dry, firm, professional. He felt nothing. Numbness had spread from his fingers up his arms, settling in his chest like anesthesia.
"I don't want to be invisible," Andy said. "Not completely. I want to build something."
"Something?"
"Structures. Real ones. Not just paper." He leaned forward, the first energy he'd felt in hours crackling through his exhaustion. "A trust fund for my parents. A holding company for investments. An investment company with actual operations, actual employees. I want to... anchor this money. Make it heavy. Make it real."
Dubois raised an eyebrow. "Most clients your age want speed. Liquidity. The ability to spend."
"I've already spent thirty-four years learning what not to do." Andy caught himself, saw Dubois's confusion, corrected: "Metaphorically. I mean... I've thought about this. A lot. I don't want to be a rich ghost. I want to be... substantial."
"Substantial," Dubois repeated, tasting the word. "That requires time. Six months, perhaps. Nine. Legal structures across multiple jurisdictions. Regulatory approvals. Due diligence on your intended investments."
"I have time." Andy thought of his parents, waiting in Bandung, worrying. "Not unlimited. But enough. Let's start."
The architecture took shape over three months.
Andy moved from the Dolder Grand to a serviced apartment in Seefeld, smaller but more functional. He bought three suits—Navy, charcoal, black—and wore them daily until they felt like skin. He learned to eat breakfast at 7 AM, to review documents until midnight, to speak the language of limited liability and beneficial ownership.
The structures emerged like geological formations, layer by layer.
The Firmasyah Family Trust came first. Established in Liechtenstein, managed by Pictet's fiduciary arm, designed to provide his parents with $200,000 annually without ever telling them the principal. "A pension," Dubois explained. "From a distant relative. Anonymous. Tax-efficient." Andy had insisted on the anonymity. His mother would refuse money she knew came from gambling. His father would try to give it back.
Firmasyah Holdings SA, incorporated in Luxembourg, became the central nervous system. It owned nothing directly but controlled everything—subsidiaries, investments, intellectual property. Andy sat in the director's chair, signed documents he barely understood, and watched as lawyers and accountants constructed walls of paper between him and the world.
Nusantara Capital Partners, the investment company, was Andy's own design. Registered in Singapore with a Zurich back office, it would deploy capital into Southeast Asian startups. Real companies. Real jobs. Real value created from the ether of his memory. He hired a CEO—a forty-year-old former McKinsey partner named Sarah Chen who didn't ask why her twenty-two-year-old chairman knew so much about Indonesian logistics—and gave her $50 million to start.
"What's the mandate?" Sarah Chen had asked, during their first meeting in a Marina Bay conference room.
"Find the companies that will matter in ten years," Andy said. "E-commerce. Fintech. Logistics. Don't worry about valuations. Worry about founders. Bet on people."
She'd looked at him strangely. "You sound like you've done this before."
"In another life," he'd said, and smiled until she stopped asking.
The card arrived in week six.
Andy was reviewing trust documents—forty pages of German legal text that made his eyes blur—when the courier appeared. Black uniform, unmarked envelope, no signature required.
He opened it at the window, looking out at Zurich's gray autumn sky.
Visa Infinite.
The card was heavier than plastic should be. Metal, probably. Black as oil, with his name in silver letters—not "Andy," but his real name, the one on his birth certificate, the one his mother used when she was angry: REDJA FIRMASYAH. Below it, numbers that meant nothing and everything. A chip. A contactless symbol. The infinity logo, ∞, stamped in the corner like a promise or a threat.
He turned it over. The CVV was printed in small text, already wearing slightly from his thumb's unconscious rubbing.
Redja, he thought. They used Redja.
It felt like someone else was holding the card. Someone else with his face but a different name, a different history. Andy Wijaya was the engineering student who sold cars and got lucky. Redja Firmasyah was... who? A ghost? A mask? The real person underneath all along?
He looked at his reflection in the window. The same thin face, the same tired eyes. But different now. Changed by three months of legal structures, by three hundred million dollars, by a piece of metal with his father's surname on it.
The intercom buzzed. Dubois, checking on progress.
"Come in," Andy said.
The banker entered, carrying more documents. He noticed the card in Andy's hand, nodded approval.
"Activated this morning. No spending limit, though we recommend keeping individual transactions below $500,000 to avoid automatic fraud alerts. The PIN is your mother's birth year, as requested."
"1955," Andy said automatically.
"Yes." Dubois set down the documents. "The final pieces. Signature pages for the holding company. Once these are filed, you'll have what you wanted—an empire with foundations. Heavy, as you said. Real."
Andy took the pen. His hand was steady now, practiced. He signed where indicated—Redja Firmasyah, Redja Firmasyah, Redja Firmasyah—until the name felt like his own.
"There's one more matter," Dubois said. "Your parents. The trust is ready to begin distributions, but we need contact information. Addresses. Banking details."
Andy set down the pen. Outside, Zurich was turning dark, streetlights reflecting on the lake like scattered coins.
"Not yet," he said.
"You've been here three months, Mr. Wijaya. Your mother has filed a missing persons report. Your father took early retirement to search for you. The Bandung police—"
"I know." Andy's voice cracked, surprising them both. He cleared his throat. "I know. But I can't... not like this. Not as Redja Firmasyah, chairman of three companies, holder of a black card. They wouldn't recognize me. They'd be afraid."
"Then who will you be?"
Andy looked at the card. At the documents. At the life he'd constructed from nothing but memory and nerve.
"Andy," he said. "I'll be Andy. Just for a little longer. Just until they understand."
Dubois said nothing. He gathered the signed documents, bowed slightly, and left.
Alone, Redja Firmasyah—who still thought of himself as Andy, who still woke from dreams of heart attacks in Jakarta traffic—sat on the edge of his rented bed and held the card until it warmed to his body temperature.
Three months of work. Three hundred million dollars. Three legal entities that would outlive him if he let them.
Tomorrow, he would book a flight. Not to Bandung directly—too sudden, too much. Jakarta first. A hotel. A phone call. The slow reintroduction of a son who'd disappeared and returned as something else.
But tonight, he allowed himself one moment of weakness. He dialed his mother's number—not to speak, just to hear the ring. Once. Twice. Three times.
"Hello?" Her voice, tired, worried, older than he remembered.
Andy hung up. His hand was shaking again, the card cutting crescents into his palm.
Soon, he promised himself. Soon.