AT LUNCHTIME yesterday, on the orders of his security guards, Mr Shimon Peres disappeared. Israel's Shin Bet security service has already lost one prime minister - when Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down in Tel Aviv last November - and it did not want to lose another.
For days, security chiefs had been reporting a wave of death threats to Mr Peres, from the same right wing Jewish extremist sources that produced Mr Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir.
And yesterday, election day, those threats reached their height. When Mr Peres went to vote, he was surrounded by ring after ring of bodyguards. Later, when he travelled to the town of Kfar Sava to give some personal encouragement to local Labour activists that security detachment had swollen yet further.
Israel Radio reported receiving an anonymous phone call with the stark threat "One of Peres's bodyguards is going to assassinate him." And then came the news that the rest of Mr Peres's scheduled campaign appearances for the day had been either cancelled or rearranged, and that his timetable would henceforth be kept secret.
The Labour leader went for a snatching a meal at a restaurant in Herzliyah, ironically enough, "Yigal Amir's home town. While he was there, word reached him of rumours that he had been suddenly taken ill.
He discovered that an ultra Orthodox Knesset member, Rabbi Avraham Ravitz, not one of his greatest fans, might have been the source, telephoned him, assured the rabbi of his well being, and asked him furiously why ultra Orthodox were almost all, supporting the opposition candidate, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu. "Is he a rabbi or something? Mr Peres wondered pointlessly down the phone.
The security agents, meanwhile, decided that another security sweep through the party's Tel Aviv headquarters, in the Cinerama building, might be in order. After all, Mr Peres was expected to arrive there late last night, once the first results started to flow.
According to one acutely disturbing report, the search uncovered an M-16 assault rifle and ammunition, hidden in a pillar. Journalists were booted out of the building for two hours, while further searches were conducted.
Casting his voting envelopes into the ballot box earlier, Mr Peres had appeared his customary serene self, insisting that, rather than a personal contest with his Likud rival, Mr Netanyahu, Israelis were making a choice for their future. One road leads to peace, the other leads to [Jewish] settlements [in the West Bank]. I hope, the people will decide for peace.
Mr Netanyahu, free of security concerns, voted early. He, too, insisted that "my policy will be to pursue a peace process".
Whatever the final result, Mr Netanyahu had turned a one horse race into a real contest, closing from 20 per cent to two per cent behind Mr Peres in the four months before these elections, albeit largely as a consequence of the fear sown by Hamas suicide bombers in February and March.
With rather fewer journalists in tow, Mrs Leah Rabin, widow of Mr Peres's murdered predecessor, managed a wan smile as she cast her vote.
Clad in black, she observed sadly that this was the first time in decades that she had voted without her husband by her side.
And suddenly flashing with anger, she expressed her fury that the assassin, despite a petition to the Supreme Court, was also allowed to cast a ballot yesterday.
He had shown his contempt for democracy, she said, so why should he be permitted to participate in the democratic process?