THE STORY smacks of the script for a James Bond movie.
Western journalists are worried about President Yeltsin's health and this correspondent is edgier than most. On June 11th, a source had told me that strange things could happen an act of terrorism, perhaps a bomb on the metro and, later, a "dramatic change" in the health of "this or that candidate".
A little more than five hours after our conversation, a bomb exploded on the Moscow metro killing four people.
Last Thursday, it was suggested, I keep a close watch on the president's health. Almost immediately, Mr Yeltsin went missing for a week. Then a source, who had spoken of people who had viruses at their disposal, went to ground.
Was the president seriously ill? Soon every foreign journalist here was asking the same question.
A cancelled trip to the city of Tula, south of Moscow, was plausibly explained by officials who said the campaign strategy had been changed. Next came an announcement that Mr Yeltsin had called off a meeting with agricultural producers in the Kremlin itself.
The Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, said he had a sore throat, campaign officials said he was busy working on documents but then changed their story to fall in line with the prime minister's statement.
Over the weekend it emerged that even the American embassy did not know where the president was. On Monday morning, a meeting between Mr Yeltsin and the Presidents of Ukraine and Moldova, Mr Leonid Kuchma and Mr Mircea Snegur, was abruptly cancelled.
By midday Mr Yeltsin had appeared on TV, seated at a desk, looking heavily made up, with a wooden expression and appealing to voters to come to the polls in a short speech which was obviously being read from an autocue.
Speculation died down on Tuesday but all eyes were to be fixed on Mr Yeltsin's traditional arrival at the polling station at Osennoye Boulevard on the following morning.
Mr Yeltsin did not turn up. An announcement was made that he was to vote instead at Barvikha an official estate outside Moscow which contains country lodges and more ominously, a sanatorium.
Earky TV bulletins showed politicians casting their votes of Mr Yeltsin. CNN was reporting that Mr Yeltsin's heart trouble had returned. In the afternoon, footage recorded by official Kremlin cameras, of Mr Yeltsin casting his vote and appealing to voters to come to the polls, began to appear on TV.
The president seemed to have problems with his co ordination. He walked slowly and stiffly and had a slight difficulty in inserting his voting paper in the slot in the ballot box. But his speech, though hesitant in places, appeared much clearer than on Monday. Later clips from a different angle showed him looking far sprightlier.
All pro Yeltsin politicians made statements to the effect that there was "no health problem". The new security chief, Gen Alexander Lebed, who had called for a restoration of the vice presidency and for stricter visa control on foreigners, was more emphatic than most.
Then he caused confusion by calling a woman journalist "a Spanish spy". He retracted hiss remark under pressure.
At polling stations in Moscow pro Yeltsin voters laughed at the idea that the president might be ill. One old lady who refused to give her name said it was simply his decision to vote wherever he wished.
A communist who asked to be described only as "Leon id" said he was sure a major health problem was being kept from the public, saying "that's the way it has always been here", thereby suggesting we were observing a communist phenomenon.
Mr Yeltsin's press secretary, Mr Sergei Medvedev, phrased his explanation in terms which echoed the Soviet past. Mr Yeltsin, he said, voted in private because he had, by 120 per cent, "over fulfilled his quota for meeting journalists".
