Clay Howard

General Clay Howard is the primary villain in the TV movie Nowhere to Hide, played by John Colicos.

Biography
A Marine general of upstanding reputation, Howard was close friends with helicopter pilot Major Rob Cutter and his wife Barbara, herself a retired Marine. However, some recently Bell JetRanger helicopters had begun experiencing malfunctions and crashing in mid-flight, resulting in the deaths of four Marine pilots. Howard conspired with William Devlin, a representative of the company that supplied the helicopter engines for Bell, to cover up the fact it was substandard parts in the engines by attributing the crashes to pilot error.

However, Rob found a broken engine part in the second JetRanger that crashed and realized it was made of the wrong kind of metal and broke too easily under pressure. He confided in his co-worker, Sergeant Mike Watson, unaware that Mike was in on the conspiracy and immediately alerted Howard. Howard and Devlin then sent assassins Marchais and Owens to the Cutter residence to kill them and recover the engine part.

The two only succeeded in killing Rob. Barbara escaped with both their son Johnny and the engine part. Howard tried to frame the Cutters for the theft of top-secret government documents in an effort to discredit Barbara, but very few of her husband's fellow Marines believed that the Cutters would be involved in espionage. The assassins made repeated attempts to kill Barbara, but failed, and were killed in a car bomb arranged by Barbara, allowing her and Johnny to escape into the wilderness to seek help from her husband's survivalist friend Ben.

Howard then sent a troupe of mercenaries to attack Ben's cabin. Barbara and Ben killed all but two in a firefight. Ben and one of the mercenaries killed one another, and the surviving killer kidnapped Johnny. Howard held him hostage, demanding the engine part in return for the child's safe return. Barbara appeared to comply - but wore a wire, through which Rob's helicopter pilot friends overheard the General admit his complicity in the conspiracy and all of the murders.

The Marines attacked the meeting place in their JetRanger gunships. Most of the villains fled, including Howard, who drove off in his limousine, running over Devlin in the process. Leaving Johnny with two Marine pilots, Barbara flew after Howard in one of the helicopters equipped with rocket launchers. In trying to evade Barbara, Howard drove off of a cliff into a quarry. As his limo fell, Barbara blew it up in midair with missiles fired from her helicopter.