Calling All Mercedeses.(Saudi royal family in Geneva)(Brief Article)

As the dying sun makes the mansions on Lake Geneva glow gold, members of the Saudi royal family gather for a barbecue. Servants have set up a waterfront feast in a public park, complete with two long tables, red- backed chairs and arrangements of sunflowers. Tucked away from the view of Swiss families is a black tent for the Saudi ladies, furnished with beds and throw pillows. The men sip coffee, their chauffeurs and bodyguards alert in the nearby car park. The veiled princesses lounge in the tent and at the table, digging into kebabs and flat bread, glancing occasionally at the toddlers dandled by their Filipino nannies.

Across town the family's patriarch, King Fahd, lies hospitalized for cataract surgery. This summer, for the first time since he became king in 1982, the ailing 81-year-old has come to stay in Geneva--a place he loved when he was crown prince in the 1970s. His closest brothers have come, too, and an entourage estimated to number at 350 people has been in residence since May. Those who've seen Fahd say the monarch, who suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995, is doing reasonably well. ("He recognizes his brothers," says one courtier.) Yet there's a sense that the last scene of the last act of the ancient regime is being played out among the carnival rides that have gone up on the Geneva lakefront.

Nor is Fahd the only octogenarian gulf ruler in residence near the waters. Sheik Zayed, the 84-year-old president of the United Arab Emirates, is staying just across the border in France. Because the two reign over much of the world's oil supply, the unpredictable future of the regimes that will succeed them has economists and politicians worried. A war between the United States and Iraq looms, and nobody is sure whether that new desert storm will simply cleanse the political landscape of Saddam Hussein or set the region aflame.

No such worries in Geneva. The Saudis have clogged the city's streets with Mercedeses, and delighted the merchants on the elegant Rue du Rhone. The local tourist bureau estimates they are spending $3 million to $4 million a day. A source close to the family puts the figure closer to $10 million. Fahd flew in with two 747s, a Boeing 757 mobile hospital, a Boeing 777, a Falcon 900 and a couple of Gulfstreams. His entourage has taken more than 400 rooms in the city's five-star hotels. The family rented 600 Mercedes limos. (When Geneva's store of ...