marshals claim. lots of short-haul flights make the marshal service look more productive on paper even though many of the flights are considered low-security risks. as cnn has reported for three years, the odds of you having an air marshal on your flight is so low that air marshals tell us that managers use creative accounting to pad the numbers given to congress. >> the way they do it is mickey mouse. i mean, they even go to the extent that when you are flying personally, they count that as a mission, if you are flying on vacation with your family, it is how they help top keep the numbers up. >> reporter: though the actual number is classified, it is widely reported that the number of air marshals covering 28,000 flights a day is fewer than 4,000. do the math like we did, and consider that any trip requires at least two marshals and large international flights require