PERSONALITY PROFILE/BACKGROUND

Real Name: Angela Vögel    Alias: Whitney Blaze        Secret ID: Diva/Poison/Blade/Sage

Sex: Female     Age: claims 26; really 29 (Aug. 5, 1971?)      Height: 5’11          Weight: 130 lbs

Hair Color: Medium-to-long strawberry blond                Eye Color: Blue

Distinguishing Features: Strikingly attractive and very much in control

Other Aliases: Selina Kyle; Razor (a heavy metal singer); Victoria Tyler (a cabaret singer); Natasha Alexandrov (name used when training with KGB); Gabriella Lacroix (when she met D’Angelico, though not the name she used on that actual case in Libya); Sharon Berger (alias used when taking jobs for Israel); Tori Lennox (pop/rock singer); Jenna Davis (jazz singer); Patsy Carpenter (country singer); K.C. Templeton  (blues singer); Krystal Morningstar (folk/New Age/Celtic singer); Leigh Eddings; Andrea Gaiman; Joanna Smalls; Tori Lennox (rock singer); Leia Kirk; Susan Sinclair; Elena Ivanova; Erica Draven; plus others

Emotional & Mental Hangups: Very cynical; trusts almost no one; dislikes most organized governments, terrorists and religions, but not an anarchist; bloodlust; tends to "get off on" her jobs; lack of compassion in respect to people other than Damien or Basil.

Birthplace: A research facility in the Midwest of the United States; lived in London, Edinburgh, New York, and other places in the USA

Education: Studied at Bryn Mawr (through a special scholarship), Cambridge, MIT and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. However, never completed a degree at any institute of higher learning

Best Friend: Damien Bonaire (also her lover)

Men/Women friends: Basil St. James; has cordial relationships with many people (such as Nicholai, Adriano D’Angelico, Harley Smith, etc.) but would not necessarily call them "friends."

Enemies and why: Yasir Arafatt—killed his second in command; Pagans — foiled several drug deals and killed several of their contacts; KMT — "copied" important records and turned them over to INTERPOL; American Neo-Nazis — wiped out a few small branches, turned them over to the Justice Dept.; Spetsnaz - killed some of their "best" operatives to prove they were amateurs; PFLP & PLF — worked for Israel on several jobs; (most of the above groups don’t know who hit them and others have traced it back to Poison or Blade or another alias but have no idea who that person really is)

Parents, occupation, status: Karl Frederick Vögel — biochemist/biologist; died of stroke when Angela/Whitney was 16; Colleen Catherine Kirkpatrick Vögel — music teacher and opera singer; died of cancer when Angela/Whitney was 12

Strongest character trait: resourceful; loyal to those she trusts (which is virtually no one);

Weakest character trait: unrepentant liar; very little compassion;

Sees herself: does what she must and does it very well

Seen by others: coolly unpredictable, or, to borrow from a song, "She looks like a flower but she stings like a bee."

Sense of humor: cynical, ironic

Basic nature: Not an evil person under an extremely thick shell (like the earth’s mantle). She is a predator in the truest sense of the word. It's not personal. She simply believes that the strongest survive and the weak are just prey.

Ambitions: to be powerful enough not to be messed with

Philosophy of life: To quote a song from The Scarlet Pimpernel that Whitney likes, "Reaching into the sky and higher/And the strong will thrive/The weak will cower while the fittest will survive/We wait for the darkest hour/Here we spring alive/Then with claws of fire/We devour like a falcon in the dive"

Hobbies: murder, sex, music, reading, theatre, film, chemistry

Music: pop, rock, show tunes, some new wave, punk, & heavy metal. Loves Living Color, Black Sabbath, Melissa Etheridge, Guns N Roses, U2, Genesis, Steely Dan, Prince, Ramones, Alice Cooper, Rush and others

Reading: non-fiction trivia or history; theatrical and/or film history; mysteries, classical literature in various languages; some scientific journals

Art: variable but prefers representational modern art

Favorite colors: dark shades (black, burgundy, forest green, etc.), metallics, and shocking colors (hot pink, turquoise, fuchsia, etc.)

Car: Aston Martin V8 Vantage (Geneva); Porsche 911 (Zurich)

Physical, economic, and mental status of home: elegant; obviously expensive without showing off; a haven; relaxed; very secure; never brings clients/victims to her home; only brings coworkers there as a last resort.

Most important fact about character: Deadly with few scruples though she does have a certain loyalty to whoever is currently paying her. She also won’t betray something about a previous job just because it’s over. All of the above loyalty, however, disappears in an instant if she believes she was betrayed.

Background: Karl Vögel was a scientist in Nazi Germany who specialized in biology, biochemistry and pathology. He was a scientific prodigy who began doing normal lab assistant work at the age of about 17. In addition to monitoring the experiments he was assigned, he would often also try his own theories to the problems on the side. Usually, his versions were more successful than the official ones. The funding sponsors eventually noticed and set him up with his own lab to do his own research. Karl was thrilled. He loved unlocking the mysteries of the human body and truly wanted to eliminate disease.

Unfortunately for Karl, this was shortly before World War II and the Nazi government was the sponsor of his work. Karl, like many gifted people, tended to be blind to anything other than his research. He didn’t understand politics so he ignored what was happening. He knew the Third Reich was obsessed with the idea of ÜberMensch and sometimes heard talk of research such as his being used for weapons but assumed it was propaganda. Near the end of the war he was snatched (or liberated, depending upon the account) by a team composed of American and British agents. They took him to London and interrogated him concerning his research. He truly couldn’t figure out why they treated him like scum. Finally, one angry interrogator showed him the reason – when his superiors replicated his experiments they were using death camp prisoners rather than mice and rats. Karl was horrified and tried to commit suicide due to the guilt.

Karl’s captors suggested a way to assuage his guilt — work for them bettering the world. Often he could do his own experiments, but sometimes they would ask him to work on a particular project. During this period, he was basically passed back and forth between the American and British governments. Eventually he became angry about being treated like a toy and threatened to expose some of the research projects assigned to him. That was countered with the threat of exposing him as a war criminal. After that he mainly did what was ordered.

During one of his stays in the U.S. he met, fell in love with, and married Colleen Kirkpatrick. Karl had married rather late in life so they didn’t expect children but in 1969 they had a daughter, Angela. Angela showed a talent for science early and was given scholarships to many fine schools in both the U.S. and England in the hopes that she would become as good a scientist as her father but less argumentative. She studied but was bored. Both governments also missed the point. While Angela was gifted at science, she wasn’t a prodigy like her father. Rather, she had a photographic memory that aided her normal ability. Her true gift was her voice and acting ability. Like her mother, she was a gifted singer but she had a much larger vocal range.

When Angela was 12, her mother died of cancer. Karl never forgave himself because he believed she would have lived if his cancer research hadn’t been interrupted so many times. He then ignored all the government projects he had been working on and devoted himself entirely to immune system research. In the meantime, Angela was accepted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (they were living in England at the time) and also studied music. She was a success and finally took an interest in her studies. After her seventeenth birthday, Angela’s father made a major break through. He isolated the genes and the specific triggers within those genes that either strengthen the immune system or, if damaged, severely weakened them. His research was quickly confiscated by the American government (he had been moved back there in the meantime) who wanted to use it for as a weapon, not a cure. Karl had a stroke upon hearing that news. Angela flew to America immediately but there was nothing she could do. Karl did, however, manage to explain what happened and some details about his research before he died.

Angry at this final blow to her father, Angela disappeared from the Academy. She disguised herself, "got close to" the official who authorized the seizure, stole her father’s papers, destroyed any other related work on record, and killed the official (slipped him a drug that makes one very susceptible to heart attacks and then gave him the night of his life — literally). A few papers were left behind but not enough to duplicate the experiments. The theft never went public as the U.S. could not explain the theft of something that would be so controversial. Angela faked her own suicide over grief for her father’s death.

Angela went through several identities within the next three years while learning about the seedier side of life. For a brief period, she was trained by the KGB. She went through their training very quickly and eagerly learned speed reading. Now she can memorize as fast as she can read. Angela never forgets a face, M.O., strategy or weapon. She’s an avid reader on many topics and drives experts in many fields crazy with her ability to remember seemingly insignificant details. However, she never became a full-time operative for the KGB, because through a combination of ingenious arguments and feminine wiles, she managed to convince key officials that she would be much more valuable to them as freelancer in case they ever needed to go outside their organization. Surprisingly, the KGB was confident that she never betrayed their trust (she didn’t. She is loyal to whoever pays her for that particular job, unless they cross her). At 21, she officially became a free lancer living under the name Whitney Blaze (though she’s hired under other names).

At first her jobs consisted primarily of mole assignments or information search and possibly destroy. She was extremely successful. Using her Academy talents, she became adept at disguise and often used music in some form as a cover (she has a wide range of ability as well as taste). Gradually she became known as an assassin and her favorite method became one of her code names, "Poison." Her photographic memory is not known but enables her to get information without standard copying devices that might be found. When not working, she either travels with the jet set (who know her as Whitney Blaze), relaxes at home, or pretends to be a performer in a club. In her travels, she met Damien Bonaire, an antique dealer (she believes), and his partner/best friend, Basil St. James. They are about the only two people that she would say she trusts. She has not, however, revealed her real profession.